Since I'm currently disillusioned with the spell system, I'm thinking of creating a melee character to do the main quest. But I'm wondering if a melee character is very effective in the long run. Or is it just a matter of running up to enemies and constantly swing your sword over and over until they're dead? In that sense, it doesn't seem much different than spamming destruction spells until they're dead.

Thanks.

Depends on difficulty and build. A light armor sword n board character on high difficulties is anything but hack and slash. Unless you deliberately make your character unstoppable with Enchanting and Smithing, melee does pose some challenge beyond hacking on the higher difficulties. All the classes do, technically, but melee tends to be in deadly range at all times whereas mages and archers can stay back.

Yep.

I love playing melee but I always supplement it with some kind of ranged skill, whether it's archery or destruction magic. With melee-only opponents that means I can start damaging them before they are close enough to deal any damage to me, with opponents who also use ranged attacks it means it will be easier for me to get out of range again if I need time to recover or rethink my strategy.

Depends.

For example, if you're gonna roll block - one handed, you can go all the way. Once you fill your block, heavy armor and one handed with perks, you're basicly unstoppable melee beast who can take anything or anyone, especially if you use daedric artfacts. You can also go with light armor, but it doesn't make much difference once you perked heavy armor, because you don't have penalty on armor weight. Altho, 50% extra stamina regeneration as light armor user is handy. Difficulty here is like.. 2/10, very easy so go for master difficulty in mid game.

Two handed is a nice way to go too. It's bit more challenging then block - one handed because you lack armor rating in early - mid game (unless you go for smithing too), but you will not have problems with one - two targets. You will stagger them all the time with sick power attacks, which will give you chance to hit more often withut being hit. Here, I would warmly recommend to go for Greatswords. They do less damage then other two handed weapons, but they are fastest, and with 30% crit perk it makes up for damage really fast. I tried all, Hammers, Axes and Swords, and in my experience it is Greatsword big time > other. Difficulty 4/10, not challenging too much, go for expert - master.

Assassin-like characters are deadly in melee too. You can go for sneak - 15x crit backstab damage with DB gloves who give you x2 backstab, so in total you will have 30x extra damage when you sneak attack. It's usually one shot. Dual wield, not just for assassins is very very strong and deadly in melee if you leveled your one - handed + perk for dual wield. You will cut trough opponents very fast, but it drains stamina a lot, so I would suggest you to go with light armor there to gain 50% stamina regeneration perk. Difficulty here is well... Depends on you, and how can you adept.

All in all, you can't miss with melee. For me, melee is far the deadliest way to harm your opponents if you play it right. And ofcourse, if you have smithing + enchanting, you will get bored very soon, because you will just run trough enemies very fast.

It's very effective. Most of my characters are melee oriented.

I'm not usually a fan of melee builds, but I will say that I'm enjoying playing Warriors (and their various sub-types) in Skyrim more than I have in most other games.

As for being effective, even with only moderate use of Alchemy, Enchanting, and/or Smithing, you can get ridiculous amounts of damage out of your weapons. You are in harm's way all the time, but proper attribute allocation and armor selection/upkeep will keep that from being a major concern.

I predominately play melee on expert. It starts off harder than it ends up, IMO.