[Gaming] Elder Scrolls 5 - Dawnguard is HERE!

Dave

Staff member
10 best Skyrim mods - so far

I can't remember who it is here, but someone hates giant spiders and can't play games with them in there. One of the mods is called No Spiders. It replaces all spiders with bears. Yes, bears. And they look hilarious!!
 

Dave

Staff member
So is anyone else having issues with absorbing dragon souls? I have 2 shouts that need to be activated and I've killed and absorbed 3 dragons since I got them and neither are absorbing. Is there something else I need to do?
 
This game is amazing. I liked Morrowind, I disliked Oblivion, but I am in LOVE with Skyrim. They removed most of the tedious stuff I hated, put it in a "province" with my type of viking vibes, and throw dragons at me from out of nowhere to kill.

As for what I am playing I can only call myself a Nordic Ranger. He is a Nord that concentrates on light armor, archery, sneak, and two-handers for when things get close. I also have him learning restoration magic and some one-handed combat for those times I need to get a bit of healing in. Speech and Blacksmithing are also high on my list but don't get much in the way of my perk points.

My only real issue is the horrible consolitis.

Right now I am focusing on the main questline and that of the Companions, and even agreed to become a werewolf. I did visit the magic school, and became a student, but I have yet to return there. Figured they would get by fine without one novice hanging out, even more so since magic is rather secondary for me. I have also visited all the major cities and ran a few side quests, mostly playing myself as a mercenary and adventurer. I own a fully upgraded house in Whiterun too.

Once I get a few more quests done I am considering looking for an in-game wife, but I am torn on who I would want. Lydia has been with me since after I killed my first dragon, and has helped me take down another 7 since then. However, they didn't do much to give her a personality, other then a few quips when you question her about the basic stuff and a random "Oh this place is amazing!" I wish she had more quests or anything to give her some more personality. I really like the strong, even mean personality of Aela the Huntress, but I have only adventured with her once or twice. I hear if you marry her you can have her follow you instead of Lydia though, so I might do it just so the two of us can sling arrows at people. I also considered Ysoldre, mostly because I hear marrying a merchant woman gives you a constant stream of extra gold, but that sounds a little to happy homemaker for my gruff nordic ranger.

P.S. Being a werewolf is insane. Anytime I see a fortress that may give me some trouble, I just wait till nightfall and then transform. I run in and when they swarm me I hit Z to roar, scaring them all to shit. I hunt one down specifically, rip him to shreds, eat him to extend my time, and then hunt the next one. When they get brave enough to swarm me again I just howl and do it again. Werewolves also have some of the most brutal kill animations I have seen. I jumped on one female elf that was working for the Thalmor, held down her arms, and then used my jaw to bite into her neck before ripping it out. Due to everyone being scared of me in the form, I don't use it all the time, instead focusing on using it at times I know I need to siege something well defended, or if I know I am not going to be needing it anytime in the next in-game day (and don't have my horse) I use it for traveling too.
 
@Dave - I'm guessing the NoSpider mod is for aracnophobics?

@Scythe - Are you "rping" the wife thing or did you just let the cat out of the bag about a feature I wasn't aware of that was in the game? Side Note: No "gay" partnerships I'm guessing?

Also Werewolf form? Aww dude, spoiler tags please?
 
@Scythe - Are you "rping" the wife thing or did you just let the cat out of the bag about a feature I wasn't aware of that was in the game? Side Note: No "gay" partnerships I'm guessing
He's not RPing the marriage thing and gay marriage is legal in Skyrim.
 
Ok, good to know. Also, maybe I should stay out of this thread, I read NOTHING about the game for months to avoid any kind of gameplay spoiler :(
 
Ok, good to know. Also, maybe I should stay out of this thread, I read NOTHING about the game for months to avoid any kind of gameplay spoiler :(
Sorry about spoiling the werewolf thing, I thought it was assumed. Pretty much every TES game utilizes a special monster like form, with vampire being the most noted in all the games. Werewolf was a form in the old Morrowind expansion that involved a Nordic island, so it was one of those things that I thought was obviously going to be the case here, since the whole game will involve the Nord's province.

As for the whole marriage thing, here is a little rundown... Adding spoiler tags this time just in case.

Basically you can visit a town called Riften, and in one corner is a church for a god called Mara. When you speak with the Priest of Mara, he tells you about how people can declare love for eachother under Mara, and sells you an amulet. The amulet acts like a "I am single and looking for a companion" tag, making it so when you speak with certain NPCs, they will proposition to fill that spot and marry you. Some will offer themselves nearly outright once you get the amulet, but others require you to impress them through quests. Aela the Huntress, a archer and hunter, is one of those ones you need to impress by doing all the quests for the Companion faction. I have yet to figure out how to unlock Lydia and make her want to marry me. There are already other NPCs like a merchant in Whiterun that showed interest. They do allow gay marriage, but funny enough none of the possible companions you find lean either way, making pretty much all of them bi-sexual.
 

Necronic

Staff member
So is anyone else having issues with absorbing dragon souls? I have 2 shouts that need to be activated and I've killed and absorbed 3 dragons since I got them and neither are absorbing. Is there something else I need to do?
Have you done the stuff for the greybeards yet? You won't be able to do any shouts (or, I presume, activate them) until that happens.
 
Ok, good to know. Also, maybe I should stay out of this thread, I read NOTHING about the game for months to avoid any kind of gameplay spoiler :(
This.
I think I'm gonna bow out of this thread as well; I'm playing a lot slower than most of the people here and I'd rather see all this myself than be told about it first.
 
Have you done the stuff for the greybeards yet? You won't be able to do any shouts (or, I presume, activate them) until that happens.
Not exactly true. I had three or four basic shouts, and could use them, before ever visiting the Greybeards. I actually did a lot of exploring and sidequests before I decided to focus on any of the main storyline, and found the shouts on stone walls written in dragon text. The Greybeards only start showing you how to increase the power of your shouts by adding new words.

To use a soul to "activate" a new shout you simply select the blackened shout power and hit R, it will spend a dragon soul to activate it.

As for Dave's issue, I have no real idea. I pretty much use up my souls after only stockpiling around 2. So far I have like 6-7 different shouts.

Really, the only shout I like using is the fire shout, though I heard there is one that slows time later in the game, that might be handy.
 
Have you done the stuff for the greybeards yet? You won't be able to do any shouts (or, I presume, activate them) until that happens.
I haven't visited the greybeards, but I've been able to activate two new shouts.

I can breath fire now, bitches!
 
I feel like I am making so many mistakes in the game, not to mention not being able to activate 2 of my shouts, even though I've completed the Graybeard's quests and absorbed a couple of dragon souls.

I may start over yet again... :(
 
I feel like I am making so many mistakes in the game, not to mention not being able to activate 2 of my shouts, even though I've completed the Graybeard's quests and absorbed a couple of dragon souls.

I may start over yet again... :(
If it makes you feel any better, my first character I didn't know how to level so when I finally figured it out, I had 6 perks to spend all at once.
 
Also, now the unspoilered responses to the spoiler post have spoiled it for me. Not that I'll probably get to play it before I would've found out anyway, but just sayin'. ;)

--Patrick
 

Cajungal

Staff member
I probably won't be able to play this game until the summer, but I've watched the fella play it. It's gorgeous, and it looks really fun. Can't wait to try one day when I can freely go into a game-coma and wake up 5 hours later.
 
I think I'm done with my destructomage. He's level 34, his destruction skill is 100 and there's no way to improve the damage of spells. Enemies can take a dozen or more of my master level spells before going down. A dozen master level spells takes my magicka pool 2.5-3 full charges. Everything else can scale, or you can at least enchant the weapons plus add all those plus percentage to weapon damage enchants to armor.

One last story for the tales thread.
 
I think I'm done with my destructomage. He's level 34, his destruction skill is 100 and there's no way to improve the damage of spells. Enemies can take a dozen or more of my master level spells before going down. A dozen master level spells takes my magicka pool 2.5-3 full charges. Everything else can scale, or you can at least enchant the weapons plus add all those plus percentage to weapon damage enchants to armor.

One last story for the tales thread.
Your damage won't go up, but have you thought about your defenses? Training in Heavy Armor would give you extra time to charge up your meter plus some extra survivability and there are perks to get rid of the speed/weight penalty.

Another option is to just maximize your magicka regen, thus making a dozen spells no big deal. I know you can get at least +75% from robes, plus another +50% from perks in the Restoration tree. Toss in a ring for another +25% and maybe an amulet that does it too and you could possible hit around 300% Magicka regen. That's not even taking into account your boots, gloves, or helmet. You'll need to have high Enchant to do this though (or some potions with + enchanting) and lots of Grand/Black soul gems.

The only other option is a shitload of potions.

I'd also like to add that only bows can really game the + damage % system. I got really lucky with my build by stumbling onto lots of stuff to boost my damage. If I had stuck with one handers, I'd still be kinda fucked.
 
I have 300% magicka regen. It still takes 15 seconds for a full recharge during combat. That's a long time.
 
Hmm... then yeah, I dunno what to say other than get a staff maybe. Unrelenting Force seems like a good tool for stalling in your case but that's literally all I can think of. How much damage are you doing with your spells? I'm averaging around 125 a shot with my bow ATM and I can down anyone (short of a dragon) within 20-25 seconds.

If your only doing like half that than yeah... your kinda fucked. You'll need to remake or re-specialize.
 
I still think using spell of doom a dozen times on most enemies a bit lame.

Definitely keeping my eye out for anti-leveling mods.
 
I think I'm done with my destructomage. He's level 34, his destruction skill is 100 and there's no way to improve the damage of spells. Enemies can take a dozen or more of my master level spells before going down. A dozen master level spells takes my magicka pool 2.5-3 full charges. Everything else can scale, or you can at least enchant the weapons plus add all those plus percentage to weapon damage enchants to armor.

One last story for the tales thread.
This won't help the damage issue, but if you level enchanting, you can imbue enough pieces of your armor with % less magicka cost to lower spell costs down to almost nothing, or nothing if you're diligent enough.
 
Actually, despite you thinking you can get the percentage to 100% less, it really only equates in practice to 50% lower cost (when you have 100%).

Fucked.
 
I love the Game,but I am lvl 11 and still wearing Steel Armor.Im getting owned by the Troll on the way to the Greybeards.
I am really hoping for a anti-leveling mod.Or maybe I should focus only on Armor,Block and 1H Weapons and ignore Blacksmithng.
 
Just run past the Troll, that is what I did...
Added at: 15:11
Smithing rocks, I lvled about 3 times just working on that. Now I have 3/4's of a set of Orcish Armor at exquisite quality... I have no more gold but I have great armor, a pretty house, and a horse.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I love the Game,but I am lvl 11 and still wearing Steel Armor.Im getting owned by the Troll on the way to the Greybeards.
I am really hoping for a anti-leveling mod.Or maybe I should focus only on Armor,Block and 1H Weapons and ignore Blacksmithng.
It took me a few tries, but I beat the frost troll (with help from Lydia) at level 7 in iron. At the time I focused entirely on Armor, Block, and 1H weapons. Now I'm level 15 or so, and I only just now got a full set of steel heavy armor.

But I'll tell you all what Aggravates me... there is no way to maintain willing suspension of disbelief when I can walk into a tavern, and fire an arrow full strength into a townsperson's head and only do ~10-15% of their max damage, leading them to jump up and attack me with an ARROW STICKING OUT OF THEIR EYE. Also, the time to call the guards was when I drew the bow, not when I fired it. They didn't think all this through, I think.

Also, ran into a bug where when I returned to Whiterun, went walking down the street and all of a sudden Valdir Grey-mane, who I had never met before, suddenly came running and cursing out of the Drunken Huntsman to attack me. The guards all ran away. Lydia and I fought him down to his knees, but he *wouldn't die.* Guessing he's important to the plot or something later so he's plot-invincible. But after a brief rest, he would get up and attack again. Only way I could end the cycle was to run off and go through some doors till I lost him. I hope this doesn't repeat itself...
 
Yeah, I think the Tales of Shego the Witch are on hold till the leveling mod.

Nothing more annoying than being Grand Arch Mage and having to cast 50 Master level spells at a butterfly, just to have it sneeze and kill you.
 
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