Hi everyone, I've got to get this off my Skyrim chest. Following is a list of my various skills, and where I stand, level wise, on each.

100 One Handed
100 Smithing
100 Light Armor
100 Sneak
78 Speech

Probably 18 to 25 in all of the following magic skills:

Alchemy
Illusion
Conjuration
Destruction
Restoration
Alteration
Enchanting

For the record: I really love playing Skyrim. I think it's one of the best games I've played in a while, however I still don't understand some of the principles. Ok.

I clearly understand that in order to increase your overall level, you have to use your skills and increase them individually to do so. What I don't understand is having to use skills that I don't care about, in the least, to get points toward increasing my overall level. I mean, I'm doing it. While I'm normally out fighting in my Thieves Guild Armor, now I'm out fighting in the Arch-Mage's robe, casting spells of Destruction of Restoration to very weak effect. I don't mind doing this if this is the way the leveling system works in Skyrim, but it seems sort of backwards to make a Nord Warrior who is good at fighting with his sword and bow, have to go out and play against his "role" just to get skill points. But that's the only option. I mean I've already maxed out Archery, so no matter how many more bow kills I make, I'm not going to raise my skill above 100, which is what it is. I'm just having trouble seeing me make it to an overall level of 80 unless I tackle all the schools of magic. I mean I've made it to level 46 using mainly the skills I listed above: the one's I've maxed out - my core skills - if you will. Oh well, this is just a silly rant, but the system does seem a little backwards. Just saying.....

I think it would be nice to pick your favorite set of skills and go out into Skyrim and let those skills take you all the way to the top. I mean what's the point in forcing a fantastic Mage to use a Greatsword and put on Heavy Armor, when he or she could be out crushing everything in sight with their epic magic skills? See what I mean?

we wont have to worry about this with patch 1.9 and legendary skills. they will allow you to reset your skill after it has hit 100 and continue to gain xp from it(bear in mind you do lose the perks associated with that skill but you get to keep the points to redistribute as you level it back up)

but yes, for now(unless you are on pc) the only way to "hit lvl 81" is to grind skills outside of your chosen path, kinda of a dumb model but they seem to have put a bandaid on it with the legendary system

1.9 allows you to reset skills and continue to level up.

you can then level your favourite skills again.

and that is 1 of the reasons i love the Legendary Skills setting so much...

Nobody's forcing you to do anything. You don't have to reach level 81 if you don't want to. But for people who don't like this system, Bethesda introduced legendary skills: when you max out a skill, you can roll it back down to 15 and start training again. This way you can keep levelling up and gaining perks without using skills that don't fit your character. This also means that there's not level cap anymore.

Actually it really does make sense for you to level those, a good warrior is one who understands them enough to be able to counter them and thus it will still make sense even from a role play perspective.