I dont know how many do something similar, but after some time I got the feeling that it really did NOT make much sense to me (personally) to have my characters reach 100 at 4-5 attributes and trying to be a 'master' of every skill. Specifically, I see that 100 as sth that should be extremely rare, and it does help differentiate each character.

So, if anyone is interested in sharing, here is what I feel gives my characters a bit more of a meaning among each of their masteries:


I - Level / Attributes / skills: Only one of each to reaches 100; other attributes / skills may reach 99, 95 or 80, but not two equals - Exception to bonuses like Oghma Infinium and such.

Level-end: Ideally, at the time one skill reaches 100, I should stop levelling, as he'd achieved Master level and that is it (unfortunately, I do not know how to deactivate skill advancement engie if existing at all).

II - Accepting Quests: e.g., my Paladin of Light would never take Thief, Assassin or Mage's quests, unless it is to save someone or eliminate a legitimate threat to good / law / order; contrary to that, my Shadow Assassin wants to infiltrate all guilds to harm the Tyranny as much as possible; as for my Mage, he couldnt care less for the Fighter's guild questline, so he doesnt even show up...

III - Equipment: Daedric is the best, I know - but my Paladin would rather use silver sword and armour (which btw doesnt exist, so wears the closest to that, Steel).

IV - Magic: I use it only if it fits the class description - my SA uses only Illusion, (maybe Alteration), while Pal only Restoration.

There are of course difficulties - a righteous pally should not loot corpses and stuff, but I didnt say I was perfect... Trying to polish all details though (planning at least).

I guess that covers my basics...

Here are some of the 'gimps' or limits my character lives with. Most are her ideas, some are imposed upon her. All are for roleplay purposes:

Her top level is 20 (simply by picking several major skills she will never touch).

She is a fragile, weak character; she cannot improve her strength or endurance beyond what a poor Bosmer starts with.

She refuses to touch a melee weapon (or staff or h2h for that matter). She's a bowgirl, and augments with magic to make her a better bowgirl.

She hardly uses destructive elemental magic to speak of, except to light torches or cook mudcrabs.

She insists on owning, traveling with and taking great care of a horse. Those who use horses will recognize the limitations this can cause.

She only unlocks things with alteration. She will pass up a locked chest or door before using a lockpick.

She dresses only for fashion, caring not a whit about armor rating. If she gets hit, she is in big trouble anyway, so she goes to great lengths to avoid that.

Try to have 3 meals every day and sleep for 8 hours in a bed every night, but this is sometimes not completely followed due to extensive dungeon crawls. Don't really remember to eat there and not every place has a bed for me to sleep in.

When just chilling in any given city, wear regular clothing. Hard to follow after a dungeon crawl when I need to get rid of items.

Don't run unless in a hurry or outside of a city.

Try to remember to eat, sleeping at night (all the shops are closed anyway) and wearing civilian clothes when not fighting for life.

But sometimes you can eat and need to run :shocking:

It happens

1. Dere's only combat skills are in Blade and Bow with magical supplementation by Alteration, Illusion, and Mysticism. No exceptions. He is not evil, however, so he may use Restoration. The three skills he will never, ever use no matter what are: Blunt, Conjuration, and Destruction. Furthermore, he cannot use longswords and claymores, only daggers, shortswords, and sabers.

2. His quiver capacity for his bow is limited to 20 arrows, if he runs out, no more shooting until the battle ends. or he can flee far enough away to refill his quiver without interruption. If he is interrupted... arrows are quite delicate.

3. Dere must eat throughout the day and sleep for at least 8 hours to remain in prime adventuring condition. Hunger and thirst are not something you want to deal with in an Ogre-filled cavern.

4. I must try to act like a normal citizen whenever possible, although since speed and athletic conditioning are something Dere needs as a rogue, he tends to go jogging throughout the day, either doing laps around city streets or just traveling a short distance at a run. This also means not wearing armor when I exit "adventure mode," which often results in me fighting battles during travel without armor.

5. To expand on Adventure Mode, I can only don armor when I am approaching an area known to be dangerous (entering a dungeon, closing in on an Oblivion Gate, etc.) I tend to let him leave the armor on when selling his spoils, but once he's done, it's gone.

6. Running is strenuous, and so is heavy lifting. If Dere runs too long or lifts too much, he will collapse.

These are the rules I can think of so far, and if I forget, I have mods to remind me. :whisper: :flamed:

My characters play as they are built, it goes for gameplay and roleplay...

So.
A: Most will only use their major skills, apart from one or two others at most.

B: combat is based on role;
i: A bardic blade style build may sneak but not backstab for crits, may cast spells but only those in majors such as commands, may use a blade but only a rapier or long sword, and use poisons.
ii: A Brawler style thief will use fists, backstab or gouge for crits, avoid fights when needed but won't use any spells.
iii: A Warrior mage with a history of acrobatics will test the mettle of foes any way she can, honourably, just to feel the rush of combat.
iiii: A Succubus priest with a dark past, vowed never to spill blood in anger or pick up a weapon, is generally a pacifist will just use drains, commands and absorbs granted by her faith and natural talents.

C: As shown above I limit equipment alot, the brawler and priest I modded specific items for, powerfull yes but of role use.
Since they're limited to those 1 - 3 items and enchantment is out for them, I feel its not that great a boost rather a reward to fit how they play, rather than for just ticking a quest item off the list.

D: Eating, sleeping so on are more role rules imo, but they use them as well.

E: Houses, guilds, quests are all limited to what the character is if it goes against their core at any point they drop it, I've even started to abandon quests chains in factions because of this.

F: I only reload on a death or glitch, anything else is played out, mistaken fine played out, killed the wrong guy played out, not saved someone played out... etc.

As usual, it depends on the character, but some of the across-the-board rules I like to apply include:

1. only carry what seems realisticly possible. Which means one set of armor and a limited amount of items in the invisible backpack. None of my characters ever get anywhere near to being over-encumbered anymore. Some items (usually potions, torch, or ingredients) can be carried on the character's belt. these are the ones I've got hotkeyed.

2. Melee characters must have only one weapon or weapon/sheild combo, assuming these items are large. Renee Gade and Renee Gade II, for instance, had a bow, a quiver of arrows, a longshield, a sword, dozens of potions & items... :facepalm: It's just ridiculous! Dyan the Paladin on the otehr hand only has her 2-handed sword or a longsword/sheild combo. Of course, this makes things interesting because she can't just switch to a bow if distance is involved...instead she usually tries to get NPC's attention by casting a Light spell and jumping around! This means the NPC now has to come to her. Sometimes, she'll also CHARGE into battle to meet her opponents.

2. Occasionally when something particularly tasty is found (Sheid of Warding or whatever) my character will cast aside whatver sheild she's got at the moment...literally throw it on the ground and walk away! This depends on if she's gonna sell or keep the item she's picked up. As inconvenient as it sounds, I've left some items behind, gone back to town to sell or store something new, and then returned back to the dungeon to pick up the loot that got left behind (Glademist Cave, anyone? )

3> the only exception to those first 2 rules is if there's a horse nearby. Let's say Dyan the paladin has found an enchanted curias, but she's already wearing a curias she's wanting to keep. She'll carry the new curias outside where the horse is, drop it on the ground, and go back into the dungeon.

4. No swimming in heavy armor... I mean, come on! No carrying any heavy weapons underwater, either. Matter of fact, I've had characters disrobe on a shore (or in a cave) go for a swim, and then return to suit up again.

5. All my characters walk alot (assuming they're not on a horse).

6> Since my Wanda Bone character, I've been applying D&D and TFT rules to TES. This means a character needs to have certain amount of intelligence or level before certain spells or skills can be obtained. This means a character also needs a certain amount of strength, before certain weapons are used. It also means Alignment (is your character evil, good, lawful etc) comes into play more forcefully. It also meeans one can't just pick up (let's say) a Repair Hammer unless one has been schooled in that skill first.

Since applying these rules from other RPGs, it's really helped because all my latest characters feel somewhat more realistically limited. No more "I've got the entire spell book in my hands because I can afford them all". If a character is supposed to be a weakling, no more swinging a longsword of any type (although Oblivion's Fatigue meter tends to prevent this anyways).

It's really somewhat of a relief to know it's possible to get thru Oblivion with just a handful of spell-types, for instance. Igodah Go^Pe had this HUGE spellbook by the time she started the MQ, for instance, but how many of them did she actually use on a regular basis?

7). Finally, I like to "wait" alot to simulate time passed during some sort of activity. Like if one of my chars goes to the smith to get his or her armor fixed, I'll wait 1-6 hours, depending how much damage is needing to be repaired.

...from there, my rules tend to get more and more character-specific. Dyan the Paladin doesn't use poison or stealth-attacks...Beujok the Grey Wizard only uses silver or enchanted daggers, etc.

I put no limits whatsoever on Angel but I have a severe limit on me. No reloading to fix a problem. That means if my character dies she is dead; period.

Despite her freedom, Angel often eats at regular intervals, sleeps at night, and travels by horse or foot. My only requirement is that she take me along.

My only general "rule" is that my characters don't know what I know. They don't know where all those "best" items can be found, and if they have no legitimate reason to, they will never "find" those items.

Certain characters have built-in biases, because of who they are...

Fortja is a master at alchemy and blade, who uses no cast magic at all (other than quest-related cast-on-self spells, such as one required to finish KOTN.)

Because of a curse by Sheogorath, Martine cannot equip any item not freely given to her. That means that she cannot wear any found or stolen clothing, armor, jewelry, or weapons. At level 10, she is still wearing her prison sack cloth (enchanted), although she also possesses a mage's robe and staff, and several other nice items given her as quest rewards.

Most of my characters are "gimped" by my choices when they were built, and have to work around weaknesses. This isn't a "rule," but it makes the playing more interesting. It generally leads to surprises, because personalities emerge during the gameplay.

Well observed - the difference between what the character knows and hat we, players know. I try to avoid knowledge outside the character's ability as much as possible - but I allow myself some 'perks': before grabbing any fire-orange (= sigil stone) i save and only get the one i like... he he.... he.

Some interesting rules in this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1114533-how-do-you-limit-yourself-in-morrowind/

My rules are few, and simple:

1. No map-clicking fast travel. I find Oblivion's fast travel system to be convenient, but as helpful to immersion as an anvil falling on my head. So I don't use it, ever. I do have mods that add Morrowind-style fast travel, and that I will use, although not that often. If my character wants to go somewhere, most often she has to get there on her own two feet, or by horse.

2. Eating, sleeping, and drinking at regular intervals. Again, mods help with this. I make sure my character sleeps at least eight hours a night, and gets regular meals. I try to keep things realistic about when she eats, too. Swigs of water while running through an Oblivion Gate makes sense, but sitting down to dinner...not so much. So if it happens to be lunchtime when I'm in the middle of an Oblivion Gate, eating will just have to wait until Amarel gets back to Cyrodiil. (Even though, with the mods I use, this means accepting various stat penalties.)

3. You can't take it with you. My current character, Amarel, goes adventuring with a couple of companions (Stoker and Vilja), one of whom has no encumbrance limits. Naturally it can get a little tempting to just turn poor Stoker into a pack mule and load him up with all the loot I've found in a dungeon. So I limit myself only to what three people could realistically carry. I still wind up with more loot than I would if Amarel were adventuring on her own, but even then I can't carry everything out of a dungeon and force myself to make some sacrifices.

Camarilla currently doesn't have a lot of restrictions. She'll fight for her life with whatever is at hand, she's not a sophisticated person by any means. If a good heavy club is what she has, that's what she'll use. Sometimes she has to sell off valuable magic loot in order to finance furnishing her new shack and get some good clothes, which she always wears when in town. She only wears armor when in the wilderness, i.e. not in a city or traveling by road. She normally prefers light armor and a blade and will always have a shield as she values her life. When traveling, a nice comfortable leather outfit is preferred.

She does eat regularly, whatever she can find/hunt, and will stop by a inn and pay for a good meal and bed if she's not close to her IC shack. She sleeps little when adventuring, just a couple of hours of rest, but then sleeps for a whole day when she's home. She also only runs if needed, but does enjoy doing some acrobatics when time allows for it. She's athletic by nature, and it comes natural to her, so why not.

She's currently working on her combat techniques and on how to apply magic to that, so there will probably be more stringent routines later on.

never use armorer. never use bows.

Damien does most of his missions for the Dark brotherhood at night. He goes into Rich houses and steals some things for money .
He also has to kill people he helps after he is done with them. If he saves someone he kills them afterward and gets the keys to their house. Damien also has to sleep during the day.
If he had completed a Mission during the night time.

Damien does not eat much. He tends to eat whenever he feels like. The only mistake he made was killing a inn keeper. He also collects some armor to sell later. He hates lock picking.
He is not good at it and wish his lock spell was higher. He hates everyone and will kill any of them if he feels like it.


He Wears all black also. He is always Depressed and rarely talks to anyone. He cares only for himself and gives beggars money for information . He only uses a sword and the blade of woe to kill.
He also uses his fireball and sometimes Shock also.

When Gregreo goes to explore, I make sure he wears his armor and has his sword/shield in mint condition. When he's attacked, he blocks quickly and keeps it this way, studying the enemy's movements before lashing out with his own attack.

If he's shot with an arrow through the chest/neck/head, I reload, pretending he died. If he's shot in the leg, I walk slowly, using healing potions to slowly restore his leg to health. Same for his arm.

I dont restrict my character, I use every advantage I can find.

My dunmer does what I would do if I were there. Some of this, some of that, whether it′s good or evil he lets others decide.
However he does not go on a killing spree for the heck of it, and he does not clear out people′s houses even if he desperately needs septims at the moment.

And all long his travels he tries to stay clear of trouble in order to enjoy life, even if he knows what to do if trouble comes to him...

My character will never fight in the arena, as fame isn't an assassins friend.

I avoid things that don't make sense to me.

No sneaking in heavy armour.
No using bows in heavy armour.
Mages don't wear armour.
Mages don't use weapons other than staves.
None of this 'head of every guild' nonsense.
No going back for loot I had to leave behind.
No Dark Brotherhood.
Try to get a normal amount of sleep. (Used to be eating, too, but that became too much of a PITA).
Never, ever pass an Oblivion gate without closing it.

There are probably more I can't think of at the moment, but that's a start.

Excellent point _ i'll keep this one in mind

I agree with most of your list. The only quibble that a couple of my characters might have is the "going back for loot" thing. I've had a couple of characters that insisted on dragging big piles of stuff outside of caves, where they could get to it with their horses. Greedy.

I'd also say no jumping in heavy armor.

how about SWIMMING in heavy armour?

Well, maybe swimming underwater...straight down to the bottom... :wink_smile: