I never had a problem with them, all of the sudden they are killing me in one flurry. I have 600 health and 270 armor(45% reduction of physical damage). On expert. I just finished the MQ, level 53 right now and nothing has come close to killing me for quite some time. In fact this was my first death on this character, who I was about done with anyway since I've completed most of the game. So I haven't been playing very carefully, and was starting to use melee just for laughs on my archer and to gain levels.

I go to a forsworn camp(Hag's End), kill pretty much everything easily up until a briarheart, the briarheart kills me in three quick swings in I assume a dual wield power attack with dual axes.

That means they're doing roughly 300 damage before armor is factored in, with one handed weapons. I can take more hits from a Draugr Death Overlord with a 2 handed ebony weapon than I can from this briarheart. This thing is hands down the most powerful creature in the game I've encountered so far, it's not even a contest.

I'd be like "okay" if this was Alduin or something, but it's just a standard leveled enemy type wielding some of the lowest level weapons in the game. If it's not a bug it's just plain stupid.

I have had this problem as well, at level 48, i have to suddenly start bumping down the difficulty to beat the briarheart. At least im not alone.

Has happened a couple of times to me too (once past level 50). I remember being hit by a giant back around level 5, the result being pretty much the same. Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge, but it does seem rather odd that I have a lot less trouble with Dragons, Giants and Draugr Deathlords. What are those Briarhearts on?!? - I want some!

Hey, youre in NZ too!
Here, have a FishyStick...

Take a poison resist potion.

They poison their weapons? That could explain it, but only of they do so after you reach a certain level, because they were never a problem before.

It's not really a good kind of challenge though, it's basically "don't enter melee range against these". I can kill them just as easily as anything else with a bow, and they're still affected by pacify. They just for some reason do absurd damage, far beyond anything else in the game I've encountered. I'll probably never die to one again now that I know this, but because I didn't know all of the sudden they'd start hitting like freight trains my otherwise nigh invincible character drops almost instantly to one.


This might explain it, but how much damage do the strongest leveled poisons enemies use do? It'd have to be really high to make that big of a difference.
I don't actually need any help killing it, was just kind of a "what the hell is this?" moment.

Just pickpocketed his heart to check weapons. Ordinary forsworn axes, not poisoned, no poison in his inventory. Unless they automatically get poisoned when they enter combat or something doesn't seem like it could be that. Wouldn't surprise me if they did have uber scaled poisons the player couldn't access though.

Also just tested with dremora lords. He kills them incredibly fast, if he's using poison his weapons are treated as being always poisoned because he doesn't hit any less hard with subsequent swings. I calmed and healed him after he kill the first two, he killed the next two just as quickly.

If this thing isn't some sort of design oversight Bethesda are jerks to melee characters.

Thanks for the FishyStick! I don't know what one is, but thanks! Right back at ya


I think it's probably an accident that they're so strong. Either way, I shall just have to continue to backstab them (or snipe from afar)

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/General:Fishy_Stick

Check it out...

Phew, I thought I was the only one having Briarheart problems.

Most of the time, I just try to sneak up and pickpocket their briar hearts (heavy armor + muffle enchantment), otherwise I spam healing potions and keep power-bashing him.

The strange thing is that the rest of the tribe is a one shot kill. its just the briarhearts.

I just spawned a Draugr Death Overlord on the thing for testing. After the Briarheart got up from being tossed by its FUS RO DAH, it burned through the Death Overlord's 1290 health in about 6 seconds. O_O

Also spawned a giant and he killed it pretty much instantly.

Dwarven Centurion Master lasted a bit longer than the giant but still got crushed.

Chaurus Reaper also stood no chance.


I'm guessing at least one of these enemies is immune to poison? You'd think undead, a poison using enemy, and especially a machine would be.

Thats pretty definitive!!

Maybe they watched a Mel Gibson movie while you were in Sovngarde.

But when you say "don't enter melee", do you count Block-happy characters?

At all levels so far, I've found the Briarhearts to be very challenging in melee.

They turn up in situations that don't seem to call for boss combat.

I don't think I've seen any lore in game to explain who the Forsworn are, or what a Briarheart is, so maybe I'm missing something.

I don't know exactly how much damage blocking stops or how reliable it'd be vs. them. They attack pretty fast, they have an increased weapon speed(1.23 multiplier) I checked with console commands. You might be able to bash spam them down, with attacks between each bash. They have around 600 health at what I'm assuming is max level for them since I'm level 53, so they're not amazingly durable.

Isn't Hag's End the place where you see that one Briarheart be made? If so, that thing is about 10 times stronger then normal.

They cap at 58.

I saw an ancient dragon attacking 3 forsworn (1 or 2 briarhearts), it was at nearly full health and once it landed lasted about 4 seconds...

As a blocking character myself, they are challenging, but not unkillable. The fact is that you need to bash, and the keep powerattacking them, to prevent them from any retalliation. Sometimes a well timed FUS RO DAH and a cliff can do wonders too ^^

Do the "forsworn conspiracy" quest in Markarth for some background on the forsworn.

It is just a couple of placed ones that seem to be over the top and frustratingly tough.
There's the Ice flinging one that guards the way to the two Hagravens and the one they resurrect, there is another one somewhere else that charges down some stairs near a dungeon exit that can kill in one or two hits. Apart from those three the rest seem to be ok.

I like them being that strong

I've just picked up a book in one of their underground lairs that explains it.

I want a Forsworn character!