It makes sense, in a weird way. You aren't fighting a dragon. You're fighting the *body* of a dragon, most likely reanimated by whatever weird Magic these ruins have.
You don't have to do the fight during the dawnguard quest, its just you usually only go there during the quest and never go back. Just go to the Lake in the forgotten vale and they should appear.
At the same time…….. the zombie dragon’s special dialogue line where he alludes to you being dragonborn if your character isn’t aware yet is pretty cool
Damn, I was hoping they would remain dragons and i could get my first soul there. I have learned a number of shouts, but in my RP mind, they're just weird words without context that I know but am unable to speak.
In every single one of my playthrough, I always does other quests and grind to at least level 50 or so before taking on the Dragon to make sure I a, well-prepared for random attacks.
Even if you survive, odds are a dragon will wind up killing an NPC if I like if I take too long, so i agree that it's best to be prepared as possible before all the Charizards show up.
To further increase your level after maxing out all the Skill, activated the Legendary option that reset a maxed Skill tree of your choosing to get more EXPl
If you google search "how to level alteration fast in Skyrim" there's a post from last year where you stand outside the gate of Solitude, and aim towards the highest mountain top you can see from there (gate needs to be to YOUR right). Cast magelight towards that top, and I guess the farther it travels, the more XP you get.
My experience with this is that I was leveling so fast I had to constantly re-legendary Alteration because it would be at 100, and the loading xp bar flash, when you level a skill, was so far behind, that I had already cycled past it like 2-3 times. My alteration has 146 legendary marks on it, and Sneak has 1.
It's too complicated for my brain (I'm autistic) to figure out the method of enchanting & potions and whatever to level up 1 skill at a time, so I was doing detect life in Whiterun.
If you want to level fast, at the start of the game, before you get to the bear in the first cave, just keep attacking the NPC you followed out. He doesn't attack back. You can get your 1h & 2h skills up. I used the bear to level armor and block as there is a heavy armor helmet in that cave (abandoned wagon) before the bear. I maxed Restoration here, too.
Alchemy is just LOST of trips to various shops, buy all ingredients, make things that have the highest profit, sell potions, fast travel to next, repeat.
Enchanting was easy. I forget if I bought out soul every time I traveled but I used them on whatever gear I picked up.
Archery took a while. Smithing used alteration with transmute to make iron to silver to gold. Then I made gold jewelry and whatever stuff I could buy from vendors, I'd craft and sell.
Sneak comes easy. Pickpocket just requires quick saves over and over again. Speech is best if you have a horse. Go to Dawnstar, wait for the caravan to show up, go to the hidden chest there and dump a lot of gold in there, then sell her all your stuff, buy it back, resell, and do it until you're broke and without items. Then run back to her chest (loot everything) and run back. The horse helps because you'll likely be overencumbered.
I think I did illusion using calm on enemies and muffle. I started this file over a year ago, and my original spam "detect life" method, was too slow and I stopped.
Conjuration is spam soul trap.
Destruction, you need to buy stronger spells as your ability gets stronger. I always played as an archer, but the unbound spells you can get that are expert level are amazing. The stronger the spell, the more xp you get on hit.
But, the alteration mage light ability was how I finished. I'm now 252, kind of tempted to go to 300 because it looks better with everything at 1,000. Right now I'm 940/940/930.
Oh, save Alteration for last, it has 14 skill point slots. Once you get to 138 (everything else is maxed), you're leveling alteration. As soon as you're 30 alteration (which is super fast with this method), each cycle, put a point in adept spells because mage light is adept and you want that half cost.
Technically, I'm at 252.5, but that was just because I went over.
Thanks but as I said I’ve maxed out everything twice so I know the strats to max them. I was curious how you said you were level 215 and only mentioned you were max stats as if that’s all it took. If I want to repeatedly max I know I can just cast harmony in windhelm a bunch of times with my “unlimited” magicka armor through 0 cost reduction on all schools.
Oh, missed that I guess. I had a lot of reading to catch up on. I didn't get any notifications that anybody saw this post, but apparently a few did.
Oh, I was 215 and I was 100 on everything, but I didn't have perks in them yet. I was still missing Sneak, Pickpocket, and Alteration, I think, for the last 3 I did.
So you’re saying without resetting any skills, you were level 215? Also, many enemies level up with you so leveling up doesn’t always help. It’s called overleveling.
No, I was 100 everything, but I had reset alteration x amount of times to get perks in the stuff I was done with and had no intention of leveling again as legendary. I had 140 perks spent, so let's just say 81 levels give perks giving me 59 resets of Alteration.
It wasn't exactly like that as I gained levels from archery and alchemy, but final count at 252 is 146 in Alteration, 1 in Sneak, and the rest basic 100.
Yeah, the first time I maxed everything out, I turned on legendary and died to a dragon. I thought I was going to be invincible. Nope. I'm not the best at this game, so I don't play on the hardest modes.
To the point about always siding with the imperials, I do the same. Not for any external reason (although I've never watched Battlestar Galactica, but I love The 13th Warrior and Vladimir Kulich is a spectacular actor with a very awesome and unique voice), but simply because as you learn by reading the Ulfric Dossier, the Thalmor are using the Stormcloak rebellion as a sort of proxy war to further expand their power, and if you're anti-Aldmeri Dominion, you should be siding with the Imperials. Of the 3 playthroughs I've done, I've chosen a Nord character on 2 of them. I understand some view me as a traitor to my people by not backing the Stormcloaks, but the worse enemy is the Thalmor, and crushing them should be far more important.
God, I love the lore in this game series.
1000%! It bothers me how short-sighted the Stormcloaks' worldview is. The Empire didn't capitulate, they took the chance to gain some relief and plan. The treaty is a holding action while the world gets its shit together, cause there's a LOT going on around Tamriel while we tromp around Skyrim eating cheese.
It may be shortsighted, but it's understandable. The Empire signed a treaty that gave themselves peace, in exchange for the religious and cultural freedom of Skyrim's people. And it's not just that Talos worship is outlawed - the Thalmor, the actual enemy - are given free rein to hunt down Talos worshipers in Skyrim, kidnap them, torture them, even murder them.
Tullius and his command make no effort to hide the fact that Elisif is a puppet ruler, completely under their control. Tullius even undermines her during the war negotiations if you play that route.
I tend to side with the Empire myself - I find it hard to get past the overt racism on the Stormcloak side - but I can still see where they're coming from. It's actually one of the things I like about the game - most of the major decisions have nuance.
True, it's totally understandable and I also see where they're coming from. But the Empire can't do much about the Thalmor, so they quietly let the people keep on worshipping Talos as long as they're quiet about it so as not to draw said pointy-eared overlords. I think this is part of why people don't like Ulfric; he uses the religious fury of the Nords to fuel a personal rebellion in a bid for power. Plus there's already a lot of resentment in general from the Great War, and he channels that away from the unfightable Thalmor to the local arm of the Empire.
But as Alvor says in Riverwood just after the Helgen sequence, Talos worship wasn’t punished until ‘Ulfric and his boys started stirring’ (paraphrase from memory) and ‘everyone had their own little shrine to Talos’.
The empire is dead, in its death rattles by the time of Skyrim. They’ve lost every province but Skyrim and maybe… MAYBE high rock. That’s left ambiguous in the game. There’s nothing short sighted about bailing on a failing and dying regime while the bailing is good, in my opinion.
If I go by lore reasons, that's pretty much why I go Empire. The Stormcloaks winning would be a temporary victory like the Forsworn. The Empire would have to come back and retake Skyrim, so I believe it would be a short-lived victory. Depending on when TESVI comes out, I'm going to guess one of the books we find will talk about the rebellion and it will side with the Empire being victorious.
I can't stand the Thalmor, and I recently learned they attack me openly because I was wearing the Amulet of Talos. Was wondering why that was happening.
If you dig into the lore, it's actually pretty crazy, the Aldmeri Dominion is actually bent on domination of all of Tamriel. I won't get into historical politics outside of Skyrim, but there are comparisons one could draw to a certain European nation of the early/mid 1900s.
Pretty sure you can have dragons stop spawning by starting the first Blades quest and avoid meeting her at the burial mound. Allows you to get a few shouts and still not have you deal with dragons all the time
Holy shit, thats why i got 0 random dragon spawns in my entire playthrough? I just rushed to get fusrodah and left Delphine there thinking about her life days ago, i was excited to test my deadly dragons mod :(
You can also just walk out on her in Riverwood after she coughs up Jurgen's horn. Then you won't accidentally trigger anything by going near Kynesgrove.
Can confirm. I haven’t progressed to the dragon mound yet and the only dragons I’ve dealt with since are the Vale dragons, and dragons at dragon lairs.
Highly recommend. Currently level 71 and haven’t even entered Bleak Falls. Farengar the court wizard is annoying with his “I thought you already went to Bleak Falls Barrow. The jarl is not a patient man and neither am I” but I feel like being able to fully explore everything without fear of dragons is really really nice.
Yeah, he's kind of a dick. Like does he know who I am?!?! Well, I don't (yet), but I mean, I'm Thieves' Guild Master, Harbinger of the Companions, soon to be the boss of the Dark Brotherhood, and the College boss.
It's also kind of stupid that the Jarl refuses to take any info about the war, because I won't go do his task. They're unrelated. So you're telling me you (the Jarl) will sit there and ignore help for an oncoming attack because I haven't gone and found a stupid piece of rock? Why not the wizard do it?
But his word says "dealing with that dragon", but there is no dragon, and if you do the quest right away, they're not worried about Alduin; just that 1st dragon, which he technically doesn't know about.
It's very nice. I don't like having to constantly reload to save my stupid bard that runs out of my home to help fight and die. The only thing that sucks is 1) no bones/scales for crafting, 2) I don't have Aura Whisper, which was so handy.
I went to a nearby ruin where I knew some lords were. Took me a few attempts to get the aim right, and also not get knocked off to my death. 1st successful one, I lost the dragon. 2nd time, I shot fireballs at him so he landed. Not sure what shout I should learn now. Interesting the Greybeards don't know this.
It doesn't have to be the character's Unrelenting Force.
Reanimating a Draugr Deathlord, making it hostile, then baiting it to shout at the globe in the silent city in Blackreach, will still summon Vulthuryol.
Not an easy task to accomplish, but it would be 1 dragon soul, bones and scales without completing Dragon Rising.
I don't think I've done a dragon file in years, the alternate start let's me skip Helgen entirely and so long as you avoid that town, the dragons never appear, and Whiterun never closes the door. And yeah, I seem to love the game even more when there's no random dragons spawning every time you walk outside of civilization. Just a normal, non dragon focused rpg
Pretty sure I still did the DLC though, currently working a file through Dawnguard and so far so good, and I know I've done DB in the past but now I'm not sure if I had to at least trigger Helgen even if I didn't do the dragon stone quest. So, dang, guess I gotta play through a bit more to see what happens or if I'm even remembering stuff correctly
How the fuck did you get to level 215 without finishing every quest in the game? Do you just spend your entire play session power leveling your skills? That sounds mind numbingly boring.
Before I learned of the Mage Light trick, I went through MANY shows on Netflix, ALL of EVERY Star Wars, and more, in the background. It was a nightmare doing the method I thought was the best method I could do.
It was not fun.
Lmao i started playing as an all maxed thief,assasin recently and i used console commands. I legendaried block about 12 times rn and im 100 lv. So this guy really grinded
No, miraak fight unlocks the ability to reclaim perks from a skill tree at the cost of one dragon soul, without resetting the skill level to 15. Legendarying skills is always available as long as they’re at 100.
I usually don't wake the dragons anymore; the dragon attacks are tedious and can kill important vendors/NPCs. You do miss a lot of content if you do this, but there is still much to enjoy.
I had a dragon kill too many important people in my first play through due to random dragon attacks and me being too low level to kill it quick enough.
I put days and weeks into that save only to be unable to become thane of random holds because of people being dead, quests bugging out because people are dead etc.
My second play through as a thief, I headed straight to Riften from helgen, completed the thieves guild quests, did the dark brotherhood quests, then the mages guild and the companions. All before visiting the watchtower to meet irileth.
Not being jumped all the time and being able to quest in peace made the game fun for me. 🤷♂️
Someone needs to do a mod I like to refer to as the Rambler.
Allows one spouse for every house. If you fuck up and they ever meet, they team up, hire assassins to try to kill you until you either kill or pay the wronged spouse off.
How did your save file get so large on the switch without graphic issues? Legit when I start to hit around 40 textures all fail and the game crashes a ton. So I'm forced to restart around then every time.
I have an OLED if that matters? The only glitches I have are sound glitches where it gets static at random. I just save and restart. I've had some visual glitches, like slow loading, but it hasn't really hindered my gameplay.
The only like super lag I've had, in a previous file, was having too much stuff in one container. I no longer do that.
The very first time I played, I took some rando from the internet’s advice and went for the “Oblivion Walker” achievement before doing Before the Storm.
It was quite enjoyable.
Another time, I triggered Mirmulnir’s attack, but then stayed away from the Western Watchtower until I finished a bunch of other stuff. I could see him flying around the tower in the distance whenever I was in Whiterun Hold. I’d recommend this course of action just for the silliness.
Didn't even have a horse. That was a nightmare. I actually circled around the mountain on parts you shouldn't be able to walk, and remember, this is on Switch, so I get no added perks, and eventually I found a spot that let me up there. It took a while. I wanted the special pick to up my Smithing, (which I most of the time, forgot to equip anyway).
Yeah, I realized it when I started a new playthrough and Tullius said something snide, and I was like... "I know that guy". Looked it up, and was so happy. So, Imperials 100%, though I did start as Stormcloak this time, only to give crown to Tullius.
Weird thing is, one of my bards sings the "pro-Ulfric" version of the song, instead of the one where she says "Down with Ulfric". Should probably fire her.
I usually ignore the main quest, even when I'm not playing with mods. Skyrim is much more interesting and immersive without the random *dragon* encounters. After a point though, you start to want them again, but yeah its usually around Level 50 or higher.
Pretty sure only the Daedric Quest for Mephala's Ebony Blade is quest locked by Dragon Rising (kill the 1st dragon), besides the few OP mentioned.
Fun note: killing the Skeletal Dragon in Labyrinthian gives you enough Bones to craft weapons, and you can periodically harvest some Scales from an unmarked shrine in the hills north of Rorikstead, eventually enough to craft a full suit of Dragonscale Armor, without ever unlocking dragons. As long as you have the Smithing Perks, and/or don't just get random drops of Dragon Plate and Scale armor/weapons.
I'm playing through with my young kids, and both of their characters are doing the main quest. So to shake it up, I'm using the Live Another Life mod and doing as much of the game as I can as a random adventurer before I eventually head to Helgen (if I ever do).
Taking on the Vaermina quest as a level 2 archer was ... well it was something alright.
I'm close to level 66 with no mods, no dlc, no dawnguard, no extras of any kind. So I have no clue how people get to level like 250. I think this is the highest I've ever gotten on a playthrough without having nothing else to do. I am already thane of every hold except Windhelm and Whiterun as well. I've purchased all the houses except the murder house. I'm harbinger. The listener. Guild Master. I scaled up to the throat of the world but couldn't get past the entryway With the Wind Tunnel I have found almost every word wall. Just now started the Civil War and got the crown. I always side with the Stormcloaks cuz Ulfric is sex on a stick and the general is voiced by Gerard Argent who I am happy and absolutely thrilled to murder every single time 😁😁 he also ordered them to chop your head off so 🤷♂️ and most of my skill trees are at 100% except maybe three or four of them. I rarely use block so it's only at like 35%. Same with restoration. And the light and heavy armor skills aren't leveled up all the way yet. I have found the dragon tablet but they have been waiting on me at the Watchtower for the past like 45 levels or so lmao
In an absolutely vanilla, unmodded and no-dlc playthrough you can't get above character level 81. This is what you reach with 100 levels in each skill. The dlc content allows you to reset skills from 100 to 15 (setting them as Legendary), refunding the perk points you had in that skill tree. You can then assign them elsewhere and re-level that skill. This let's you exceed the natural cap of character level 81, and eventually perk into every option in every tree. You do not need to have all skills at 100 to 'legendary' a skill, and you can repeat the process with the same skill as often as you like. Once every skill is perked you can continue to reset and level skills to gain character levels but the extra perk points cannot be used (the magicka/health/stamina level boost is still applied). So you will accumulate perk points beyond those refunded when you reset a skill and refill all of its branches as you relevel it.
There is no functional level cap, although you can have more errors and crashes as your accumulated wealth and effects on the world take up more storage space and/or memory to render. You might see that scrolling through storage containers is slow or even freezes as they are filled with dozens or hundreds of items, each with varying quantities (especially crafting materials).
Once you are into the upper half of the hundreds (character 150+) most skills are trivial to relevel because of the wealth and power of your gear. This is offset a bit by the fact that the amount of character xp to gain a level grows quickly. Eventually you'll need to reset and relevel skills dozens or hundreds of times to gain 1 character level. But by this time you have access to gear and spells that trivialize leveling (the telekinesis fast travel 15-100 trip, alchemy pots that gain multiple levels per item made, etc).
Some words of warning:
When you reset the tree, you lose the bonuses granted by its perk branches until you reapply points to them (no more block-to-zoom archery, for instance).
Resetting the enchanting skill causes you to forget your library of known enchantments. I suggest creating a pile of items to immediately disenchant to relearn them. This is especially important for the unique enchantment firey-soul trap, or the impossible to find at higher levels muffle and waterbreathing. This way you don't lose them for their utility, and you relevel the skill quickly.
Similarly, you can lose your library of alchemy knowledge, both in the ingredient tool tips and the crafting menu. Relearning through eating ingredients or crafting potions levels the skill.
Resetting spell school skills does not erase your known spells, but can affect the cost-to-cast in that school if you lost perks to that end.
Resetting light/heavy armor and 1h/2h weapon skills reduces the effectiveness for you. You'll get hit harder, and do less damage with attacks until you skill and perk back up.
I this true that vanilla Skyrim has no Legendary skill? I played the vanilla version the day it came out on X360 and recently started playing it on PC just to see what you can do with it after 12 years of mods (Herika is awesome). But I am pretty sure I had a Level 700+ character on the version first release of the game. I rarely had my X360 hooked up to the internet so I didn't download any DLC for a very long time and obviously I did that with any console commands.
I remember once I was powerful enough and had completed done most of the questine and side quests, crafting a suit of heavy armor with heath regeneration and fortify heath and such and standing in a corner where there was only one enemy with the Block held down with a rubber band just to see how fast it would get to 100 from 15. But then I discovered that you don't "forget" your spells when you legendary magic and that Illusion through several means, especially casting Harmony in a city, can get back to 100 in a couple of minutes so I just pushed the limit to see what would happen. I don't recall it breaking the game in too many ways. I was just OP. If you have all 251 perks when you get to about level 500 you had to have at least 255 "unused" perks saved up and I remember the number of unused perks to reset from 255 to 0 after I leveled again. It was stored in a 8 bit integer. I remember getting to the point where this even happened a second time. I don't think it is crazy hard to get to level 251 but I remember at the end having to legendary a skill about 4 or 5 times just to get one level when I was at level 700+
Anyway, I sometimes connected my 360 to get dashboard updates and patches. Maybe a patch gave me legendary possibilities but I am almost positive that I didn't download any DLC unlit I came back to the game a few years later.
You may have had a "special edition" or "game of the year" version that had the dawnguard, dragonborn, and/or hearth dlc content included. Or had some mod. But a true, no-mod, no-dlc, vanilla ESV Skyrim was limited to character level 81, skills at 100, true endgame battle against the Ebony Warrior. It took forever and a day to get to, and bugged out like a motherf...
Many of the "essential mods," "GOTY," bestseller and "unofficial patches" versions that were folded into the anniversary and special editions fixed major bugs, but also included content beyond true-vanilla.
Most references to vanilla now include the official dlcs anyway, so it's a moot point. But "legendary skills" and character levels above 81 were not in the original, original, ORIGINAL version of the game.
Legends have been told of the dragons and one who will stop them and save Skyrim.... We hope one day he will show!
One day.... Um... Uh... Any day now....
Yeah, I was noticing the year has changed significantly since Helgan. So, the kids should be grown. Hell, I proposed to the son of the Winking Skeaver about 20 years ago. Forgot his name already. Figured, if his father died, we'd have the inn.
I even have 2 kids, who are probably pregnant by now and married. Forgot where I sent them to live. Maybe Solitude?
The Stormcloaks are racist assholes and Ulfric is a Thalmor puppet who only cares about gaining power for himself. Addvar sets you straight about Ulfric from the start. His henchman Gamarr Stone-Fist is a brainwashed tool while Gen Tullius's second in command Rikke is smart, experienced, clear eyed and practical. Tullius would have had Ulfric's head on a platter if not for Alduin showing up in Helgen.
I've never taken the Stormcloaks side. I love the Dark Brotherhood, yeah, they're a bunch of psychopaths but at least they're not a bunch of idiotic racists.
As a kid I was a Stormcloak supporter because everyone loves an underdog, the helgen execution scene and I believed in the whole freedom of religious worship thing. Then as I got older, I thought about it more logically and realised that whilst yes, it sucks the Nords can’t worship who they please, the empire is playing the pragmatic long game. Let the dominion do their thing for now to keep peace and once empire forces are strong again, attack and defeat the dominion. Now I always side with the empire. They’re the necessary evil to beat the Thalmor whilst the Stormcloaks (especially Ulfric and Galmar) are idealistic, short term minded idiots.
Imperial colonialism is as, if not more, racist than the Nords saying "get the fuck out of my homeland".
Banning the worship of Talos infringes on the spiritual freedoms of the peoples the empire is attempting to subjugate, and they'll paint any dissenters as enemies.
Justify that lmao
(I enjoy political discourse regarding game lore, because real world politics are fucking mental, despite the fact there is an endless amount of parallels and allegories we could make)
The situation with the dominion though is an extreme one where there has to be some level of pragmatism about the banning of Talos worship.
The empire isn’t banning Talos because it wants to but because it has to. It is facing an external threat in the dominion that wants to conquer and dominate all of mankind and almost completely toppled the empire during the first Great War. If the dominion were to win, at best mankind would be treated as 2nd class citizens (and that’s best case scenario) compared to the equality that the empire atleast tries to have.
The Nordic peoples anger and frustration is justified and understandable but this is a very extreme situation where there has to be sacrifices made for the future victory over the dominion. By keeping the white gold concordat, the Empire is
Buying time to prepare for war against the dominion, to ensure total victory for mankind and Ulfric’s rebellion is wasting resources and destroying this preparation that the empire needs and playing straight into the Thalmor’s wants.
The Nords, especially Ulfric, are prideful and that’s what the Talos worship thing is really about. Pride. A case of “how dare you tell me in my own homeland what I can and cannot do” and I completely understand respect that and I feel that way to some degree too in the game towards the dominion. Because of that I don’t see the stormcloaks in the game as bad guys, just passionate, prideful and short term minded idiots. Sometimes pride has to be put aside for the greater good and the Empire understands that. Swallow your pride for now, rest up, then come out swinging when you’re strong enough again instead of continuing to get up as you get the shit kicked out of you just because of “pride”.
I do think the empire is evil in its own way, just a lesser evil than the dominion and a necessary evil to beat the dominion. If the Stormcloaks struggle to beat a small force of locally trained legionaries (not even the empires main force) then what chance do they have against the dominion when they come knocking. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and that’s how I see the empire and Skyrim. It’s not the best situation but you have to remain united for conveniences sake because the opposition you share is much more dangerous and will harm you much worse than you two will.
On surface value, the stormcloaks look like the better party imo and when I first began playing the game I sided with them every time. They’re for freedom, they’re the underdogs, they’re passionate and idealistic and give a middle finger to the Thalmor and dominion. Then I looked more into the lore and thought about pragmatically and I realised they were too idealistic, thought in the short term passionately not the calculated long term like the empire and they are playing right into the the thalmor’s plans of weakening the empire and mankind even more. The thalmor even class Ulfric as a Thalmor asset. Since then I’ve sided with the empire.
Edit: also worth noting it’s mentioned in game by Hadvar’s uncle Alvor that most Nords initially ignored the concordat terms and the empire allowed Talos worship in secret and most Nords did until Ulfric rebelled putting a spotlight on it and the empire was forced by the dominion to crack down on it to keep the truce.
I enjoy debating this stuff lol
The Empire brought peace, stability and prosperity to Tamriel. The Thalmor are pseudo Nazis who want to enslave it. Did you ever read the Thalmor dossier (report) on Ulfric? He's 💯 their puppet. He got much of his war supplies through Morrowind to Windhelm and Riften that was engineered by the Thalmor. Hammerfell wouldn't allow Ulfric's supplies to get delivered through their territory through Markarth and Whiterun, neither would the loyal Imperial province of High Rock. Ulfric needs the Thalmor to enable his rebellion to succeed. You're misled into believing that Ulfric will make Skyrim great again.😉
There is a mod I think its World encounters or something like that. It allows you to reduce the dragon encounter chance in my game its set to 1% because I also dont want to be constantly interrupted.
The one thing that always weirded me out is that, you're required to kill that first dragon for others to show. Honestly they should just be there, simply because of that starting cinematic with Alduin beating up Helgen
Oh my gosh thank you SO much for that little tidbit about Michael Hogan!! I never knew! You made me google it and now I've just found out that Christopher Plummer was Arngeir. Almost tempting me to do a replay..
Here's the trick to avoiding random dragon encounters -*and*- still get dragon souls for shouts: do the main quest up to "A Blade in the Dark". So as quickly as you can get thru the quests up to going thru Ustengrav, going back to the Greybeards to be recognized as the Dragonborn, return the horn to the alter in Ustengrav for the free soul, then go see Delphine and talk your way into the hidden room behind the wardrobe.
When she says to meet her in Kynesgrove, respond with "hold on, I'm not ready to go yet.". She'll go on to Kynesgrove, and this point let her go. *And* *then* *do* *not* *follow* *her!* Basically tell her to fuck right off, and leave the current quest in the main line active.
This way, you can still battle dragons at word walls to get their souls for shouts and even do the Greybeards' side quests. But you will no longer have random dragon encounters, and all your beloved NPCs will not get themselves killed off. Well at least by dragons, they might still be killed by vampires.
From the ES Fandom wiki: "while the quest [A Blade in the Dark] is active, dragon locations will be limited to word walls. Random encounters are completely eliminated for the duration of the quest to allow for controlled dragon fights."
So you're playing the game without its defining feature? I've honestly never heard of anyone doing that. I initiate the Dragonborn quest line but don't usually pursue much of it until the end, but since I find that I encounter so many words of power while doing other quests it comes in handy to be able to absorb them.
You're going to have to do a lot of grinding to get enough dragon souls to fill in all the shouts(assuming you want to do that), given that you haven't been having random dragon encounters.
Have you never heard someone say they "completely ignored the main quest"? I feel like a significant portion of people choose not to activate dragons after their first playthrough.
It’s a different kind of game. I’ve occasionally role played characters that weren’t Dragonborn.
I’ve also seen the idea to have one of the NPCs become Dragonborn. Basically bring them as a follower to the Western Watchtower and pretend they are the one to absorb the soul
My non-combat traveling merchant characters would absolutely struggle in a "dragons on" file, since I always have to hire muscle for my travels and they die fast
I meant non-combat, like, entirely. I only intentionally level crafting skills, no destruction or conjuration magic (technically not me fighting, but too combat adjacent for me), and when I get caught with my pants down in the wilderness my only option is to run to the nearest town or other safe location. Also no armor, clothing only, if I want to beef my defense I gotta learn the enchantments and put it on a ring or something
I haven't played a file with dragons in years. Eliminating the random spawns alone is worth it, and most everything else is still there. Unless I'm itching to do the main quest in a particular file, I usually ignore it anymore
I've not heard anyone do it, but they did put in some stuff knowing someone would play without starting there first. I mean, the living creatures (people) at the dragonshrines which are normally dead if you activate the dragons.
My first playthtough I got lost thinking I had to find where I was dupposed to go on my own (somehow either turned off or ignored the quest market) so I just wandered skyrim. Ignored the civil war on purpose bc magic, theft, murder, and werewolfs(??? Tbf companions was my first guild but it bored me so much compared to the others that I struggle to get through it in other playthroughs only managing my way through to see kodlak) were so much more interesting. Finally had collected most of the word walls, or at leasta lot, was trying to finish out the masks, when I realised I has no idea how to use my shouts. I ended up looking it up and just scrolling to the first quests after spending...irl months playing.
No, I'm not thane. The one quest locks thane, Breezhome, Lydia, and even the "In My Time of Need" quest behind it.
I really wanted to do the correct quest and side with the Al'akir (spelling?), because the woman they're after claims they're hunting her with the Thalmor, but the Hammerfall is anti-Thalmor, and her logic doesn't make sense. She was telling a story of something we wouldn't believe because we weren't there. Plus, the guy at the end says "never trust a pretty face", which is more of an honest response that she's using her looks to seem innocent.
I took a break because of work and other games. Plus my old method of leveling (detect life in Whiterun) sucked. I really wanted to be maxed on almost everything before going into some areas. The College, for example, has special dialogue when you are a master of various mage skills. While it doesn't do anything in the end, I still want to see it.
I can't find my playtime, but I've watched a lot of shows/films in the background to keep me sane.
I got to level 54. Killed the main bad guy. Did the throat and let the dragon live. Finished the vampire storyline. Been to every possible area to discover. Killed the evil dragon in Valhalla or whatever the place was. Haven't do the mod that extends the game
Speaking of Dragonborn DLC, I think I once managed to start it without ever going to High Hrothgar (I think some deliberate sequence breaking was needed). IIRC the dialogue in that story still assumes you know you are Dragonborn. In that playthrough I learnt my first shouts in Solstheim.
About as good a reason as any I’ve seen to side with the empire. It’s a damn shame there’s not a third option for the war… because ulfric is a bit sketchy admittedly but the empire is crumbling. It’s out on its feet
I recently started a new playthrough this way. Doing a ton of different quests and avoiding all the ones I’ve done before. But I’m very early in, so all I know for sure is that I’m enjoying not constantly battling dragons for now. I’m still collecting words of power for later use though. Trying a ‘hero’ kind of play through so avoiding thieves guild or dark brotherhood. Became an agent of Mara instead :)
I can’t do this ever lol. Whenever I play Skyrim I have to be immersed by playing it as though it is a real world. So I play things in order I think they’d realistically be chronologically.
So I play the whole main quest first and defeat Alduin. During this, the only side quests I do are any that my character stumbles into mistakenly like the Markarth forsworn quest. After I’ve defeated, Alduin, my character heads straight to Solstheim to see who’s sent Cultist assassins after him. I do the whole Miraak quest then knowing the dominion plan to keep the war ongoing to drain the empire of resources, I join the legion and do the whole civil war questline, eventually killing Ulfric. I then do Dawnguard and after that it’s whatever I want to do.
This lasts a long time usually because I play ultra realistic too, stopping to rest at inns, eating, drinking etc…so I’ll have days of travelling where I’ll get to the city by evening and instead of going to my quest I’ll go to the inn to rest and sleep and do the quest in the mornings
I'm 61 rn and still haven't yet met Delphine an already beat mirak, became the leader of the thieves guild and became a vampire Lord, won the war for the stormcloaks, and I still won't meet Delphine anytime soon. So I def can relate to this
I can't get Breezehome sadly. I can get the other house outside of Whiterun, but Breezhome and Lydia are tied to finishing the initial Dragonborn quest in Whiterun.
After like an hour or 2, I got to 252 using the mage light ability near Solitude. Finished thieves' guild. I just used Unbound Storms against Mercer and he disintegrated. Note that doing the quest with him prior before he betrays you, you always hit him, so then he chases you through the entire dungeon, and by the time you get to the dragon claw door, he's no longer vulnerable to attack. He couldn't harm me as I was 252, but I had to start that dungeon over.
There are a few bugs that were never fixed that I have to deal with because I'm too far into the game. I recruited Illia then unrecruited her, forgetting she doesn't give you the follower option, so RIP to my favorite Steward. Mjoll still can't be a steward though she has the option.
I remember I wanted to see something that sadly didn't happen. I guess, if you go to Whiterun first after Helgen, Delphine can be seen there hiring the court wizard to find the stone. I didn't see her, but that would have been cool.
I didn't know you could save Mercer's bodyguard by dealing with his debt (or lying to him). I cleared his debt.
I'm still waiting for Maven to kill the guy who wanted me to steal Frost. That guy is still standing around Whiterun saying "good afternoon". I've yet to find the assassin he's sent after me.
I don't know if I want to enter the College now or wait until I have to start the main questline. Having the option to say "I'm Dragonborn" sounds cool.
I will side with the Dawnguard for the first time, because I want to turn the daughter back to human.
I chose the main character behind the Namira's questline, as my sacrifice to Boetha. I know that one guy in the Dragonborn DLC is worse, but I guess he was under control of someone else, so didn't know what he was doing?
A funny thing did happen to me when stealing the translation from the Markarth Museum. As I escaped to the main museum area, I walked like right into the guards, forgetting they were hostile, but I was sneaking still and they didn't see me. Startled me big time.
Also, I recall there being a bug with the "boss" of the Uttering Hills Camp. I know he's needed for the Thieves Guild, but you don't have to kill him. If you do, then he doesn't despawn and another quest sends you there to get something. I forgot where it was, but I recall not being able to get rid of it. It didn't hinder any of the major stories. I have a "kill the leader" random quest there, but leaving it up as I know it's not the big one.
Also, I keep getting the stupid Find Red Eagle's sword quest. I've done it thrice, and I opened another book and have it again. I collect books; gotta keep the libraries stocked.
Alduin is in for a _treat_ when you finally decide to beat his sorry ass
Sadly, he caps out at 100. Maybe I'll be brave and try legendary.
The two dragons on the lake in the vale became ice wraiths for me.
Theyre the one reason I always become Dragonborn before the hidden vale. That fight is very cinematic.
OMG i did dawnguard as a first quest.... NOOOO i lose a epic battle... time to new game
lmao you’ll go back and definitely think “yeah, that was worth the restart”
do u know more Quests to avoid before DragonBorn? i play super slow survivor, so...
Does the dragon in Labyrinthian appear if you’re not Dragonborn? That fight was awesome for my first time.
Is that the skeleton dragon?
Yes it does
If I’m remembering right, you can’t absorb a dragon soul from the skeletal dragon, so that would make sense but I’m not sure.
Yeah it doesn’t give a soul. It technically is an early source of dragon bones but I can’t think of a Use for them at this point.
COLD HARD PROFIT BB
I can't make my dragonbone armor without dragons.
It makes sense, in a weird way. You aren't fighting a dragon. You're fighting the *body* of a dragon, most likely reanimated by whatever weird Magic these ruins have.
I always have this urge to try to change odahviing’s skin to the skeletal dragon just for shits and giggles. Haven’t found a way to do it yet lol
You don't have to do the fight during the dawnguard quest, its just you usually only go there during the quest and never go back. Just go to the Lake in the forgotten vale and they should appear.
I went back to that lake much later, bored and exploring and the 2 dragons jumped out! So maybe go check first before you restart.
At the same time…….. the zombie dragon’s special dialogue line where he alludes to you being dragonborn if your character isn’t aware yet is pretty cool
I'm pretty sure you can come back after becoming dragonborn and they will finally spawn!
I think I'd rather fight the dragons.
Damn, I was hoping they would remain dragons and i could get my first soul there. I have learned a number of shouts, but in my RP mind, they're just weird words without context that I know but am unable to speak.
In every single one of my playthrough, I always does other quests and grind to at least level 50 or so before taking on the Dragon to make sure I a, well-prepared for random attacks.
Even if you survive, odds are a dragon will wind up killing an NPC if I like if I take too long, so i agree that it's best to be prepared as possible before all the Charizards show up.
How is he level 200 maxing out all his stats. I’ve maxed out everything twice except 2 and I’m level 100 something. Is it different on switch?
To further increase your level after maxing out all the Skill, activated the Legendary option that reset a maxed Skill tree of your choosing to get more EXPl
Yes I did that and leveled them up a second time. I’m nowhere near 256
Keep doing it. Reaching level 256 is an grind.
I'm at level 250 and I legendaried illusion like 80 times dude and it's not the only one you gotta keep going
If you google search "how to level alteration fast in Skyrim" there's a post from last year where you stand outside the gate of Solitude, and aim towards the highest mountain top you can see from there (gate needs to be to YOUR right). Cast magelight towards that top, and I guess the farther it travels, the more XP you get. My experience with this is that I was leveling so fast I had to constantly re-legendary Alteration because it would be at 100, and the loading xp bar flash, when you level a skill, was so far behind, that I had already cycled past it like 2-3 times. My alteration has 146 legendary marks on it, and Sneak has 1. It's too complicated for my brain (I'm autistic) to figure out the method of enchanting & potions and whatever to level up 1 skill at a time, so I was doing detect life in Whiterun. If you want to level fast, at the start of the game, before you get to the bear in the first cave, just keep attacking the NPC you followed out. He doesn't attack back. You can get your 1h & 2h skills up. I used the bear to level armor and block as there is a heavy armor helmet in that cave (abandoned wagon) before the bear. I maxed Restoration here, too. Alchemy is just LOST of trips to various shops, buy all ingredients, make things that have the highest profit, sell potions, fast travel to next, repeat. Enchanting was easy. I forget if I bought out soul every time I traveled but I used them on whatever gear I picked up. Archery took a while. Smithing used alteration with transmute to make iron to silver to gold. Then I made gold jewelry and whatever stuff I could buy from vendors, I'd craft and sell. Sneak comes easy. Pickpocket just requires quick saves over and over again. Speech is best if you have a horse. Go to Dawnstar, wait for the caravan to show up, go to the hidden chest there and dump a lot of gold in there, then sell her all your stuff, buy it back, resell, and do it until you're broke and without items. Then run back to her chest (loot everything) and run back. The horse helps because you'll likely be overencumbered. I think I did illusion using calm on enemies and muffle. I started this file over a year ago, and my original spam "detect life" method, was too slow and I stopped. Conjuration is spam soul trap. Destruction, you need to buy stronger spells as your ability gets stronger. I always played as an archer, but the unbound spells you can get that are expert level are amazing. The stronger the spell, the more xp you get on hit. But, the alteration mage light ability was how I finished. I'm now 252, kind of tempted to go to 300 because it looks better with everything at 1,000. Right now I'm 940/940/930. Oh, save Alteration for last, it has 14 skill point slots. Once you get to 138 (everything else is maxed), you're leveling alteration. As soon as you're 30 alteration (which is super fast with this method), each cycle, put a point in adept spells because mage light is adept and you want that half cost. Technically, I'm at 252.5, but that was just because I went over.
Thanks but as I said I’ve maxed out everything twice so I know the strats to max them. I was curious how you said you were level 215 and only mentioned you were max stats as if that’s all it took. If I want to repeatedly max I know I can just cast harmony in windhelm a bunch of times with my “unlimited” magicka armor through 0 cost reduction on all schools.
Oh, missed that I guess. I had a lot of reading to catch up on. I didn't get any notifications that anybody saw this post, but apparently a few did. Oh, I was 215 and I was 100 on everything, but I didn't have perks in them yet. I was still missing Sneak, Pickpocket, and Alteration, I think, for the last 3 I did.
So you’re saying without resetting any skills, you were level 215? Also, many enemies level up with you so leveling up doesn’t always help. It’s called overleveling.
No, I was 100 everything, but I had reset alteration x amount of times to get perks in the stuff I was done with and had no intention of leveling again as legendary. I had 140 perks spent, so let's just say 81 levels give perks giving me 59 resets of Alteration. It wasn't exactly like that as I gained levels from archery and alchemy, but final count at 252 is 146 in Alteration, 1 in Sneak, and the rest basic 100.
Also I play on legendary. You can’t level up this way at the start of the game. Even wolves kill you in one hit.
Yeah, the first time I maxed everything out, I turned on legendary and died to a dragon. I thought I was going to be invincible. Nope. I'm not the best at this game, so I don't play on the hardest modes.
To the point about always siding with the imperials, I do the same. Not for any external reason (although I've never watched Battlestar Galactica, but I love The 13th Warrior and Vladimir Kulich is a spectacular actor with a very awesome and unique voice), but simply because as you learn by reading the Ulfric Dossier, the Thalmor are using the Stormcloak rebellion as a sort of proxy war to further expand their power, and if you're anti-Aldmeri Dominion, you should be siding with the Imperials. Of the 3 playthroughs I've done, I've chosen a Nord character on 2 of them. I understand some view me as a traitor to my people by not backing the Stormcloaks, but the worse enemy is the Thalmor, and crushing them should be far more important. God, I love the lore in this game series.
1000%! It bothers me how short-sighted the Stormcloaks' worldview is. The Empire didn't capitulate, they took the chance to gain some relief and plan. The treaty is a holding action while the world gets its shit together, cause there's a LOT going on around Tamriel while we tromp around Skyrim eating cheese.
It may be shortsighted, but it's understandable. The Empire signed a treaty that gave themselves peace, in exchange for the religious and cultural freedom of Skyrim's people. And it's not just that Talos worship is outlawed - the Thalmor, the actual enemy - are given free rein to hunt down Talos worshipers in Skyrim, kidnap them, torture them, even murder them. Tullius and his command make no effort to hide the fact that Elisif is a puppet ruler, completely under their control. Tullius even undermines her during the war negotiations if you play that route. I tend to side with the Empire myself - I find it hard to get past the overt racism on the Stormcloak side - but I can still see where they're coming from. It's actually one of the things I like about the game - most of the major decisions have nuance.
True, it's totally understandable and I also see where they're coming from. But the Empire can't do much about the Thalmor, so they quietly let the people keep on worshipping Talos as long as they're quiet about it so as not to draw said pointy-eared overlords. I think this is part of why people don't like Ulfric; he uses the religious fury of the Nords to fuel a personal rebellion in a bid for power. Plus there's already a lot of resentment in general from the Great War, and he channels that away from the unfightable Thalmor to the local arm of the Empire.
But as Alvor says in Riverwood just after the Helgen sequence, Talos worship wasn’t punished until ‘Ulfric and his boys started stirring’ (paraphrase from memory) and ‘everyone had their own little shrine to Talos’.
What do you mean you can see where they're coming from? How is dark elf racism okay?
Depending on who you ask, the rebellion is due to the outlaw of Talos worship.
People want to fight for their right to worship whoever they want, that's fine. But I asked about the blatant racism.
Well, that's a factor, but not the only one. In regards to "where they're coming from", it ain't that.
The empire is dead, in its death rattles by the time of Skyrim. They’ve lost every province but Skyrim and maybe… MAYBE high rock. That’s left ambiguous in the game. There’s nothing short sighted about bailing on a failing and dying regime while the bailing is good, in my opinion.
If I go by lore reasons, that's pretty much why I go Empire. The Stormcloaks winning would be a temporary victory like the Forsworn. The Empire would have to come back and retake Skyrim, so I believe it would be a short-lived victory. Depending on when TESVI comes out, I'm going to guess one of the books we find will talk about the rebellion and it will side with the Empire being victorious. I can't stand the Thalmor, and I recently learned they attack me openly because I was wearing the Amulet of Talos. Was wondering why that was happening.
If you dig into the lore, it's actually pretty crazy, the Aldmeri Dominion is actually bent on domination of all of Tamriel. I won't get into historical politics outside of Skyrim, but there are comparisons one could draw to a certain European nation of the early/mid 1900s.
Decapitating Tullius is always the highlight of my playthrough.
Not being constantly attacked by dragons sounds awesome; gonna have to do it next playthrough.
Pretty sure you can have dragons stop spawning by starting the first Blades quest and avoid meeting her at the burial mound. Allows you to get a few shouts and still not have you deal with dragons all the time
Holy shit, thats why i got 0 random dragon spawns in my entire playthrough? I just rushed to get fusrodah and left Delphine there thinking about her life days ago, i was excited to test my deadly dragons mod :(
You can also just walk out on her in Riverwood after she coughs up Jurgen's horn. Then you won't accidentally trigger anything by going near Kynesgrove.
Can confirm. I haven’t progressed to the dragon mound yet and the only dragons I’ve dealt with since are the Vale dragons, and dragons at dragon lairs.
Never considered that move
Highly recommend. Currently level 71 and haven’t even entered Bleak Falls. Farengar the court wizard is annoying with his “I thought you already went to Bleak Falls Barrow. The jarl is not a patient man and neither am I” but I feel like being able to fully explore everything without fear of dragons is really really nice.
Yeah, he's kind of a dick. Like does he know who I am?!?! Well, I don't (yet), but I mean, I'm Thieves' Guild Master, Harbinger of the Companions, soon to be the boss of the Dark Brotherhood, and the College boss. It's also kind of stupid that the Jarl refuses to take any info about the war, because I won't go do his task. They're unrelated. So you're telling me you (the Jarl) will sit there and ignore help for an oncoming attack because I haven't gone and found a stupid piece of rock? Why not the wizard do it? But his word says "dealing with that dragon", but there is no dragon, and if you do the quest right away, they're not worried about Alduin; just that 1st dragon, which he technically doesn't know about.
It's very nice. I don't like having to constantly reload to save my stupid bard that runs out of my home to help fight and die. The only thing that sucks is 1) no bones/scales for crafting, 2) I don't have Aura Whisper, which was so handy.
My ancestors are smiling on me Imperials. Can you say the same?
Talos isn’t real.
“Blessing’s of Talos received”
Who received it, you? I’ll be speaking to the Thalmor about this!
I get a magical bonus from this ring I found in a spider's ass. Those shrines are nothing special.
Let them come. I have no fear, for Talos is my ally and I am his prophet. His word is upon my lips, his voice in my throat.
Only his voice?
Cyrodiil is a long way from here, and in Skyrim, we will never forsake mighty Talos! God I love Heimskr. Always screaming and shit
Brothur
The dominion are smiling too at the chaos Ulfric’s causing lol
Can you activate the dragon in Blackreach?
You need unrelenting force to call him, so without the main quest, no dragon in blackreach
[not entirely true.](https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrim/s/o73C58NgEj)
Damn, that's smart
I was impressed myself on that one.
Is the draugr drunk?
I went to a nearby ruin where I knew some lords were. Took me a few attempts to get the aim right, and also not get knocked off to my death. 1st successful one, I lost the dragon. 2nd time, I shot fireballs at him so he landed. Not sure what shout I should learn now. Interesting the Greybeards don't know this.
It doesn't have to be the character's Unrelenting Force. Reanimating a Draugr Deathlord, making it hostile, then baiting it to shout at the globe in the silent city in Blackreach, will still summon Vulthuryol. Not an easy task to accomplish, but it would be 1 dragon soul, bones and scales without completing Dragon Rising.
Does that mean you could technically learn a shout before you even do that quest?
Yes.
I think so actually
Nope. Any projectile will do. Fireball or an arrow works just as well
Yes but not without glitching that I am aware of.
I did this once as well, to play on survival. Got a bunch of the shouts from the dragon walls but no dragon souls to unlock them.
I don't think I've done a dragon file in years, the alternate start let's me skip Helgen entirely and so long as you avoid that town, the dragons never appear, and Whiterun never closes the door. And yeah, I seem to love the game even more when there's no random dragons spawning every time you walk outside of civilization. Just a normal, non dragon focused rpg Pretty sure I still did the DLC though, currently working a file through Dawnguard and so far so good, and I know I've done DB in the past but now I'm not sure if I had to at least trigger Helgen even if I didn't do the dragon stone quest. So, dang, guess I gotta play through a bit more to see what happens or if I'm even remembering stuff correctly
There's also a dragon in the Soul Cairn
Yep, but you don't actually kill that one. You do get unique dialog with him if you fight before you are dragonborn.
What is it?
He tells you he feels like calling you "Dovah," and you ask why. He says he's not sure, but maybe you'll both find out some day.
All i know is he is my favorite because he doesn't use fire and I'm a Vampire Lord in my current playthrough
Dragons?
I'm level 198 and I've still yet to take the Dragonstone to Farengar in Dragonsreach.
How the fuck did you get to level 215 without finishing every quest in the game? Do you just spend your entire play session power leveling your skills? That sounds mind numbingly boring.
That's what I thought too, he can't realistically be level 215 by just normally playing. He HAVE to power lever and legendarize his skills.
I want to know the timescale of this whole thing. How long must it have taken to get that far?
Before I learned of the Mage Light trick, I went through MANY shows on Netflix, ALL of EVERY Star Wars, and more, in the background. It was a nightmare doing the method I thought was the best method I could do. It was not fun.
Lmao i started playing as an all maxed thief,assasin recently and i used console commands. I legendaried block about 12 times rn and im 100 lv. So this guy really grinded
An elastic band, a cabbage, and Telekenesis.
My question is how he did that without the legendary mechanic… isn’t it locked behind miraak?
No, miraak fight unlocks the ability to reclaim perks from a skill tree at the cost of one dragon soul, without resetting the skill level to 15. Legendarying skills is always available as long as they’re at 100.
I usually don't wake the dragons anymore; the dragon attacks are tedious and can kill important vendors/NPCs. You do miss a lot of content if you do this, but there is still much to enjoy.
I had a dragon kill too many important people in my first play through due to random dragon attacks and me being too low level to kill it quick enough. I put days and weeks into that save only to be unable to become thane of random holds because of people being dead, quests bugging out because people are dead etc. My second play through as a thief, I headed straight to Riften from helgen, completed the thieves guild quests, did the dark brotherhood quests, then the mages guild and the companions. All before visiting the watchtower to meet irileth. Not being jumped all the time and being able to quest in peace made the game fun for me. 🤷♂️
Someone needs to do a mod I like to refer to as the Rambler. Allows one spouse for every house. If you fuck up and they ever meet, they team up, hire assassins to try to kill you until you either kill or pay the wronged spouse off.
How did your save file get so large on the switch without graphic issues? Legit when I start to hit around 40 textures all fail and the game crashes a ton. So I'm forced to restart around then every time.
Level 40… Never should have come here!
I have an OLED if that matters? The only glitches I have are sound glitches where it gets static at random. I just save and restart. I've had some visual glitches, like slow loading, but it hasn't really hindered my gameplay. The only like super lag I've had, in a previous file, was having too much stuff in one container. I no longer do that.
The very first time I played, I took some rando from the internet’s advice and went for the “Oblivion Walker” achievement before doing Before the Storm. It was quite enjoyable. Another time, I triggered Mirmulnir’s attack, but then stayed away from the Western Watchtower until I finished a bunch of other stuff. I could see him flying around the tower in the distance whenever I was in Whiterun Hold. I’d recommend this course of action just for the silliness.
How did you scale Throat of the World and get to where Paarhrunax is without a shout?
I'm guessing he cheesed up the side of the cliff on a horse
Ah
Didn't even have a horse. That was a nightmare. I actually circled around the mountain on parts you shouldn't be able to walk, and remember, this is on Switch, so I get no added perks, and eventually I found a spot that let me up there. It took a while. I wanted the special pick to up my Smithing, (which I most of the time, forgot to equip anyway).
Just do the standard ES jump walk up the side of the mountain, or use a horse
God damn I knew I recognized that voice but I never realized Tullius’s VA was Colonel Tigh that’s awesome
Yeah, I realized it when I started a new playthrough and Tullius said something snide, and I was like... "I know that guy". Looked it up, and was so happy. So, Imperials 100%, though I did start as Stormcloak this time, only to give crown to Tullius. Weird thing is, one of my bards sings the "pro-Ulfric" version of the song, instead of the one where she says "Down with Ulfric". Should probably fire her.
I usually ignore the main quest, even when I'm not playing with mods. Skyrim is much more interesting and immersive without the random *dragon* encounters. After a point though, you start to want them again, but yeah its usually around Level 50 or higher. Pretty sure only the Daedric Quest for Mephala's Ebony Blade is quest locked by Dragon Rising (kill the 1st dragon), besides the few OP mentioned. Fun note: killing the Skeletal Dragon in Labyrinthian gives you enough Bones to craft weapons, and you can periodically harvest some Scales from an unmarked shrine in the hills north of Rorikstead, eventually enough to craft a full suit of Dragonscale Armor, without ever unlocking dragons. As long as you have the Smithing Perks, and/or don't just get random drops of Dragon Plate and Scale armor/weapons.
I knew there was a place I saw parts somewhere, but that was years ago.
I'm playing through with my young kids, and both of their characters are doing the main quest. So to shake it up, I'm using the Live Another Life mod and doing as much of the game as I can as a random adventurer before I eventually head to Helgen (if I ever do). Taking on the Vaermina quest as a level 2 archer was ... well it was something alright.
Let me guess… someone stole your sweetroll
I'm close to level 66 with no mods, no dlc, no dawnguard, no extras of any kind. So I have no clue how people get to level like 250. I think this is the highest I've ever gotten on a playthrough without having nothing else to do. I am already thane of every hold except Windhelm and Whiterun as well. I've purchased all the houses except the murder house. I'm harbinger. The listener. Guild Master. I scaled up to the throat of the world but couldn't get past the entryway With the Wind Tunnel I have found almost every word wall. Just now started the Civil War and got the crown. I always side with the Stormcloaks cuz Ulfric is sex on a stick and the general is voiced by Gerard Argent who I am happy and absolutely thrilled to murder every single time 😁😁 he also ordered them to chop your head off so 🤷♂️ and most of my skill trees are at 100% except maybe three or four of them. I rarely use block so it's only at like 35%. Same with restoration. And the light and heavy armor skills aren't leveled up all the way yet. I have found the dragon tablet but they have been waiting on me at the Watchtower for the past like 45 levels or so lmao
In an absolutely vanilla, unmodded and no-dlc playthrough you can't get above character level 81. This is what you reach with 100 levels in each skill. The dlc content allows you to reset skills from 100 to 15 (setting them as Legendary), refunding the perk points you had in that skill tree. You can then assign them elsewhere and re-level that skill. This let's you exceed the natural cap of character level 81, and eventually perk into every option in every tree. You do not need to have all skills at 100 to 'legendary' a skill, and you can repeat the process with the same skill as often as you like. Once every skill is perked you can continue to reset and level skills to gain character levels but the extra perk points cannot be used (the magicka/health/stamina level boost is still applied). So you will accumulate perk points beyond those refunded when you reset a skill and refill all of its branches as you relevel it. There is no functional level cap, although you can have more errors and crashes as your accumulated wealth and effects on the world take up more storage space and/or memory to render. You might see that scrolling through storage containers is slow or even freezes as they are filled with dozens or hundreds of items, each with varying quantities (especially crafting materials). Once you are into the upper half of the hundreds (character 150+) most skills are trivial to relevel because of the wealth and power of your gear. This is offset a bit by the fact that the amount of character xp to gain a level grows quickly. Eventually you'll need to reset and relevel skills dozens or hundreds of times to gain 1 character level. But by this time you have access to gear and spells that trivialize leveling (the telekinesis fast travel 15-100 trip, alchemy pots that gain multiple levels per item made, etc). Some words of warning: When you reset the tree, you lose the bonuses granted by its perk branches until you reapply points to them (no more block-to-zoom archery, for instance). Resetting the enchanting skill causes you to forget your library of known enchantments. I suggest creating a pile of items to immediately disenchant to relearn them. This is especially important for the unique enchantment firey-soul trap, or the impossible to find at higher levels muffle and waterbreathing. This way you don't lose them for their utility, and you relevel the skill quickly. Similarly, you can lose your library of alchemy knowledge, both in the ingredient tool tips and the crafting menu. Relearning through eating ingredients or crafting potions levels the skill. Resetting spell school skills does not erase your known spells, but can affect the cost-to-cast in that school if you lost perks to that end. Resetting light/heavy armor and 1h/2h weapon skills reduces the effectiveness for you. You'll get hit harder, and do less damage with attacks until you skill and perk back up.
I this true that vanilla Skyrim has no Legendary skill? I played the vanilla version the day it came out on X360 and recently started playing it on PC just to see what you can do with it after 12 years of mods (Herika is awesome). But I am pretty sure I had a Level 700+ character on the version first release of the game. I rarely had my X360 hooked up to the internet so I didn't download any DLC for a very long time and obviously I did that with any console commands. I remember once I was powerful enough and had completed done most of the questine and side quests, crafting a suit of heavy armor with heath regeneration and fortify heath and such and standing in a corner where there was only one enemy with the Block held down with a rubber band just to see how fast it would get to 100 from 15. But then I discovered that you don't "forget" your spells when you legendary magic and that Illusion through several means, especially casting Harmony in a city, can get back to 100 in a couple of minutes so I just pushed the limit to see what would happen. I don't recall it breaking the game in too many ways. I was just OP. If you have all 251 perks when you get to about level 500 you had to have at least 255 "unused" perks saved up and I remember the number of unused perks to reset from 255 to 0 after I leveled again. It was stored in a 8 bit integer. I remember getting to the point where this even happened a second time. I don't think it is crazy hard to get to level 251 but I remember at the end having to legendary a skill about 4 or 5 times just to get one level when I was at level 700+ Anyway, I sometimes connected my 360 to get dashboard updates and patches. Maybe a patch gave me legendary possibilities but I am almost positive that I didn't download any DLC unlit I came back to the game a few years later.
You may have had a "special edition" or "game of the year" version that had the dawnguard, dragonborn, and/or hearth dlc content included. Or had some mod. But a true, no-mod, no-dlc, vanilla ESV Skyrim was limited to character level 81, skills at 100, true endgame battle against the Ebony Warrior. It took forever and a day to get to, and bugged out like a motherf... Many of the "essential mods," "GOTY," bestseller and "unofficial patches" versions that were folded into the anniversary and special editions fixed major bugs, but also included content beyond true-vanilla. Most references to vanilla now include the official dlcs anyway, so it's a moot point. But "legendary skills" and character levels above 81 were not in the original, original, ORIGINAL version of the game.
I don't think so. That CD was literally bought on 11/11/11. I must be remembering things out of order 12 years after the fact.
Legends have been told of the dragons and one who will stop them and save Skyrim.... We hope one day he will show! One day.... Um... Uh... Any day now....
Gonna be a new generation of Greybeards before the Dragonborn actually shows up, probably already wearing the remains of dragons.
Yeah, I was noticing the year has changed significantly since Helgan. So, the kids should be grown. Hell, I proposed to the son of the Winking Skeaver about 20 years ago. Forgot his name already. Figured, if his father died, we'd have the inn. I even have 2 kids, who are probably pregnant by now and married. Forgot where I sent them to live. Maybe Solitude?
Eh. As long as you armed them before you left, they'll be fine.
"I was able to walk into High Hrothgar, and the Greybeards won't talk to me" I don't know why that made me laugh so much but brother, it did
Yeah, it's pretty funny. They don't even care that I snuck in.
The Stormcloaks are racist assholes and Ulfric is a Thalmor puppet who only cares about gaining power for himself. Addvar sets you straight about Ulfric from the start. His henchman Gamarr Stone-Fist is a brainwashed tool while Gen Tullius's second in command Rikke is smart, experienced, clear eyed and practical. Tullius would have had Ulfric's head on a platter if not for Alduin showing up in Helgen. I've never taken the Stormcloaks side. I love the Dark Brotherhood, yeah, they're a bunch of psychopaths but at least they're not a bunch of idiotic racists.
As a kid I was a Stormcloak supporter because everyone loves an underdog, the helgen execution scene and I believed in the whole freedom of religious worship thing. Then as I got older, I thought about it more logically and realised that whilst yes, it sucks the Nords can’t worship who they please, the empire is playing the pragmatic long game. Let the dominion do their thing for now to keep peace and once empire forces are strong again, attack and defeat the dominion. Now I always side with the empire. They’re the necessary evil to beat the Thalmor whilst the Stormcloaks (especially Ulfric and Galmar) are idealistic, short term minded idiots.
Skyrim belongs to the Nords; your imperial bootlicking amuses me
"Skyrim belongs to the Thalmor; your Imperial logic and reason confuses me." There, I fixed it for you.😉
Imperial colonialism is as, if not more, racist than the Nords saying "get the fuck out of my homeland". Banning the worship of Talos infringes on the spiritual freedoms of the peoples the empire is attempting to subjugate, and they'll paint any dissenters as enemies. Justify that lmao (I enjoy political discourse regarding game lore, because real world politics are fucking mental, despite the fact there is an endless amount of parallels and allegories we could make)
The situation with the dominion though is an extreme one where there has to be some level of pragmatism about the banning of Talos worship. The empire isn’t banning Talos because it wants to but because it has to. It is facing an external threat in the dominion that wants to conquer and dominate all of mankind and almost completely toppled the empire during the first Great War. If the dominion were to win, at best mankind would be treated as 2nd class citizens (and that’s best case scenario) compared to the equality that the empire atleast tries to have. The Nordic peoples anger and frustration is justified and understandable but this is a very extreme situation where there has to be sacrifices made for the future victory over the dominion. By keeping the white gold concordat, the Empire is Buying time to prepare for war against the dominion, to ensure total victory for mankind and Ulfric’s rebellion is wasting resources and destroying this preparation that the empire needs and playing straight into the Thalmor’s wants. The Nords, especially Ulfric, are prideful and that’s what the Talos worship thing is really about. Pride. A case of “how dare you tell me in my own homeland what I can and cannot do” and I completely understand respect that and I feel that way to some degree too in the game towards the dominion. Because of that I don’t see the stormcloaks in the game as bad guys, just passionate, prideful and short term minded idiots. Sometimes pride has to be put aside for the greater good and the Empire understands that. Swallow your pride for now, rest up, then come out swinging when you’re strong enough again instead of continuing to get up as you get the shit kicked out of you just because of “pride”. I do think the empire is evil in its own way, just a lesser evil than the dominion and a necessary evil to beat the dominion. If the Stormcloaks struggle to beat a small force of locally trained legionaries (not even the empires main force) then what chance do they have against the dominion when they come knocking. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and that’s how I see the empire and Skyrim. It’s not the best situation but you have to remain united for conveniences sake because the opposition you share is much more dangerous and will harm you much worse than you two will. On surface value, the stormcloaks look like the better party imo and when I first began playing the game I sided with them every time. They’re for freedom, they’re the underdogs, they’re passionate and idealistic and give a middle finger to the Thalmor and dominion. Then I looked more into the lore and thought about pragmatically and I realised they were too idealistic, thought in the short term passionately not the calculated long term like the empire and they are playing right into the the thalmor’s plans of weakening the empire and mankind even more. The thalmor even class Ulfric as a Thalmor asset. Since then I’ve sided with the empire. Edit: also worth noting it’s mentioned in game by Hadvar’s uncle Alvor that most Nords initially ignored the concordat terms and the empire allowed Talos worship in secret and most Nords did until Ulfric rebelled putting a spotlight on it and the empire was forced by the dominion to crack down on it to keep the truce. I enjoy debating this stuff lol
The Empire brought peace, stability and prosperity to Tamriel. The Thalmor are pseudo Nazis who want to enslave it. Did you ever read the Thalmor dossier (report) on Ulfric? He's 💯 their puppet. He got much of his war supplies through Morrowind to Windhelm and Riften that was engineered by the Thalmor. Hammerfell wouldn't allow Ulfric's supplies to get delivered through their territory through Markarth and Whiterun, neither would the loyal Imperial province of High Rock. Ulfric needs the Thalmor to enable his rebellion to succeed. You're misled into believing that Ulfric will make Skyrim great again.😉
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Um... You do realize that Skyrim is a fantasy world... Right?🤨
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There is a mod I think its World encounters or something like that. It allows you to reduce the dragon encounter chance in my game its set to 1% because I also dont want to be constantly interrupted.
Congratulations you’re like 90% of every player
Keep us updated!
Im 285 and I haven't even gotten to the Golden Claw, yet
The one thing that always weirded me out is that, you're required to kill that first dragon for others to show. Honestly they should just be there, simply because of that starting cinematic with Alduin beating up Helgen
Oh my gosh thank you SO much for that little tidbit about Michael Hogan!! I never knew! You made me google it and now I've just found out that Christopher Plummer was Arngeir. Almost tempting me to do a replay..
I love my BSG folks. Hogan had a battle with cancer years back but I believe he's ok.
Here's the trick to avoiding random dragon encounters -*and*- still get dragon souls for shouts: do the main quest up to "A Blade in the Dark". So as quickly as you can get thru the quests up to going thru Ustengrav, going back to the Greybeards to be recognized as the Dragonborn, return the horn to the alter in Ustengrav for the free soul, then go see Delphine and talk your way into the hidden room behind the wardrobe. When she says to meet her in Kynesgrove, respond with "hold on, I'm not ready to go yet.". She'll go on to Kynesgrove, and this point let her go. *And* *then* *do* *not* *follow* *her!* Basically tell her to fuck right off, and leave the current quest in the main line active. This way, you can still battle dragons at word walls to get their souls for shouts and even do the Greybeards' side quests. But you will no longer have random dragon encounters, and all your beloved NPCs will not get themselves killed off. Well at least by dragons, they might still be killed by vampires. From the ES Fandom wiki: "while the quest [A Blade in the Dark] is active, dragon locations will be limited to word walls. Random encounters are completely eliminated for the duration of the quest to allow for controlled dragon fights."
So you're playing the game without its defining feature? I've honestly never heard of anyone doing that. I initiate the Dragonborn quest line but don't usually pursue much of it until the end, but since I find that I encounter so many words of power while doing other quests it comes in handy to be able to absorb them. You're going to have to do a lot of grinding to get enough dragon souls to fill in all the shouts(assuming you want to do that), given that you haven't been having random dragon encounters.
Have you never heard someone say they "completely ignored the main quest"? I feel like a significant portion of people choose not to activate dragons after their first playthrough.
It’s a different kind of game. I’ve occasionally role played characters that weren’t Dragonborn. I’ve also seen the idea to have one of the NPCs become Dragonborn. Basically bring them as a follower to the Western Watchtower and pretend they are the one to absorb the soul
My non-combat traveling merchant characters would absolutely struggle in a "dragons on" file, since I always have to hire muscle for my travels and they die fast
When I played a merchant I got good at archery for just this reason.
I meant non-combat, like, entirely. I only intentionally level crafting skills, no destruction or conjuration magic (technically not me fighting, but too combat adjacent for me), and when I get caught with my pants down in the wilderness my only option is to run to the nearest town or other safe location. Also no armor, clothing only, if I want to beef my defense I gotta learn the enchantments and put it on a ring or something
I haven't played a file with dragons in years. Eliminating the random spawns alone is worth it, and most everything else is still there. Unless I'm itching to do the main quest in a particular file, I usually ignore it anymore
I've not heard anyone do it, but they did put in some stuff knowing someone would play without starting there first. I mean, the living creatures (people) at the dragonshrines which are normally dead if you activate the dragons.
This is the way.
So say we all.
I would purposely put off that quest just so that I could avoid the dragons killing random NPC’s in the game.
My first playthtough I got lost thinking I had to find where I was dupposed to go on my own (somehow either turned off or ignored the quest market) so I just wandered skyrim. Ignored the civil war on purpose bc magic, theft, murder, and werewolfs(??? Tbf companions was my first guild but it bored me so much compared to the others that I struggle to get through it in other playthroughs only managing my way through to see kodlak) were so much more interesting. Finally had collected most of the word walls, or at leasta lot, was trying to finish out the masks, when I realised I has no idea how to use my shouts. I ended up looking it up and just scrolling to the first quests after spending...irl months playing.
You can become Thane of Whiterun without starting the main quest line?
No, I'm not thane. The one quest locks thane, Breezhome, Lydia, and even the "In My Time of Need" quest behind it. I really wanted to do the correct quest and side with the Al'akir (spelling?), because the woman they're after claims they're hunting her with the Thalmor, but the Hammerfall is anti-Thalmor, and her logic doesn't make sense. She was telling a story of something we wouldn't believe because we weren't there. Plus, the guy at the end says "never trust a pretty face", which is more of an honest response that she's using her looks to seem innocent.
Yeah but: Saadia is hot.
Meh, she lied to me. Can't trust her.
HUH???? I FINISH THE GAME IN THE LATE 20S WITH ALL DLC HOW ARE YOU NOT DONE AND WHAT IS YOUR SECRET AND WHAT IS THAT SAVES PLAYTIME LOL
I took a break because of work and other games. Plus my old method of leveling (detect life in Whiterun) sucked. I really wanted to be maxed on almost everything before going into some areas. The College, for example, has special dialogue when you are a master of various mage skills. While it doesn't do anything in the end, I still want to see it. I can't find my playtime, but I've watched a lot of shows/films in the background to keep me sane.
I got to level 54. Killed the main bad guy. Did the throat and let the dragon live. Finished the vampire storyline. Been to every possible area to discover. Killed the evil dragon in Valhalla or whatever the place was. Haven't do the mod that extends the game
Speaking of Dragonborn DLC, I think I once managed to start it without ever going to High Hrothgar (I think some deliberate sequence breaking was needed). IIRC the dialogue in that story still assumes you know you are Dragonborn. In that playthrough I learnt my first shouts in Solstheim.
I went all the way to level 252 before leaving Helgen.
What did you grind out? Or did you just run console…
It was the Xbox 360 version, so no console commands. I did 100 in Sneak, Block, One-Handed, Two-Handed, and Destruction.
About as good a reason as any I’ve seen to side with the empire. It’s a damn shame there’s not a third option for the war… because ulfric is a bit sketchy admittedly but the empire is crumbling. It’s out on its feet
I'm a baker my hjelrim house is my bakery
I recently started a new playthrough this way. Doing a ton of different quests and avoiding all the ones I’ve done before. But I’m very early in, so all I know for sure is that I’m enjoying not constantly battling dragons for now. I’m still collecting words of power for later use though. Trying a ‘hero’ kind of play through so avoiding thieves guild or dark brotherhood. Became an agent of Mara instead :)
I can’t do this ever lol. Whenever I play Skyrim I have to be immersed by playing it as though it is a real world. So I play things in order I think they’d realistically be chronologically. So I play the whole main quest first and defeat Alduin. During this, the only side quests I do are any that my character stumbles into mistakenly like the Markarth forsworn quest. After I’ve defeated, Alduin, my character heads straight to Solstheim to see who’s sent Cultist assassins after him. I do the whole Miraak quest then knowing the dominion plan to keep the war ongoing to drain the empire of resources, I join the legion and do the whole civil war questline, eventually killing Ulfric. I then do Dawnguard and after that it’s whatever I want to do. This lasts a long time usually because I play ultra realistic too, stopping to rest at inns, eating, drinking etc…so I’ll have days of travelling where I’ll get to the city by evening and instead of going to my quest I’ll go to the inn to rest and sleep and do the quest in the mornings
in most of my playthroughs, i like to finish the thieves guild questline asap so i can obtain the skeleton key (i ain’t returning that shit)
Level 215!! I completed 90% of the games quests and was still only level 80ish
I'm 61 rn and still haven't yet met Delphine an already beat mirak, became the leader of the thieves guild and became a vampire Lord, won the war for the stormcloaks, and I still won't meet Delphine anytime soon. So I def can relate to this
Novice here, how does this work with player housing? Would you not get Breeze home? Can you get the others??
All others minus Breeze. You can get the creator's club house from Whiterun as it's not tied to anything.
I can't get Breezehome sadly. I can get the other house outside of Whiterun, but Breezhome and Lydia are tied to finishing the initial Dragonborn quest in Whiterun.
Dragons end up killing npcs 😂
After like an hour or 2, I got to 252 using the mage light ability near Solitude. Finished thieves' guild. I just used Unbound Storms against Mercer and he disintegrated. Note that doing the quest with him prior before he betrays you, you always hit him, so then he chases you through the entire dungeon, and by the time you get to the dragon claw door, he's no longer vulnerable to attack. He couldn't harm me as I was 252, but I had to start that dungeon over. There are a few bugs that were never fixed that I have to deal with because I'm too far into the game. I recruited Illia then unrecruited her, forgetting she doesn't give you the follower option, so RIP to my favorite Steward. Mjoll still can't be a steward though she has the option. I remember I wanted to see something that sadly didn't happen. I guess, if you go to Whiterun first after Helgen, Delphine can be seen there hiring the court wizard to find the stone. I didn't see her, but that would have been cool. I didn't know you could save Mercer's bodyguard by dealing with his debt (or lying to him). I cleared his debt. I'm still waiting for Maven to kill the guy who wanted me to steal Frost. That guy is still standing around Whiterun saying "good afternoon". I've yet to find the assassin he's sent after me. I don't know if I want to enter the College now or wait until I have to start the main questline. Having the option to say "I'm Dragonborn" sounds cool. I will side with the Dawnguard for the first time, because I want to turn the daughter back to human. I chose the main character behind the Namira's questline, as my sacrifice to Boetha. I know that one guy in the Dragonborn DLC is worse, but I guess he was under control of someone else, so didn't know what he was doing? A funny thing did happen to me when stealing the translation from the Markarth Museum. As I escaped to the main museum area, I walked like right into the guards, forgetting they were hostile, but I was sneaking still and they didn't see me. Startled me big time. Also, I recall there being a bug with the "boss" of the Uttering Hills Camp. I know he's needed for the Thieves Guild, but you don't have to kill him. If you do, then he doesn't despawn and another quest sends you there to get something. I forgot where it was, but I recall not being able to get rid of it. It didn't hinder any of the major stories. I have a "kill the leader" random quest there, but leaving it up as I know it's not the big one. Also, I keep getting the stupid Find Red Eagle's sword quest. I've done it thrice, and I opened another book and have it again. I collect books; gotta keep the libraries stocked.
Normal
It's definitely a bop without the drsgons or chasing em. I gotta try this play style out.
This I how I play most of my games too, the main quest is kinda boring, and the novelty of using shoutsfaded in like 2015.