I'm gonna start off by saying that I had extremely low expectations for Skyrim, but Bethesda really blew me away with this game.

However, there is a really annoying issue, so to speak, about character creation. First, the game provides no explanation about the different skills and powers of the different races. Given how accessible Beth has made the game, it's sort of odd they provide no statistics for the race bonuses. More annoying to me is that the actual creation system is kind of disappointing. Half of your character's face is shadowed, and the lighting is overall dark. Also, you can't fully rotate your view around, making some face adjustments hard to judge.

Almost every time I create a character who looks the way I want in the creation, it ends up looking wrong when I get into the Helgen keep and see it in better light. Unlike Oblivion, you aren't given the option to recreate your character at the end of the tutorial dungeon. If you want to redo your character you have to load the beginning save and go through the tutorial all over again.

I'm not sure if this is something that Bethesda could patch, But it'd be nice to finally create a character who looks how I intended.

I can see your grip with the darkness when creating the character but you could try turning up the brightness in your settings for that part and see if that helps you out.

About the lack of descriptions for the skills and powers for the different races, there are none. They did away with that whole class thing, you pick a race but then you can get good at whatever skill you want so long as you use it. Then you can buy perks for each skill as you level up. But there are no restrictions on how good your character can get at a particular skill, which is one of the things that II think makes this game great.

It would be nice to know statistics on "strong resistance" in game. I also miss having a colour slider to change the shades of everything, in detail. Purple hair, man. And skin.

Breton (Manmer)
Home Province: High Rock

Abilities/Powers:

?Resist Magic 25%
?Power: Dragonskin

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Conjuration
?+5 Alchemy, Alteration, Illusion, Restoration, Speech

Imperial (Cyrodils)
Home Province: Cyrodiil

Abilities/Powers:

?Imperial Luck
?Power: Voice of the Emperor

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Restoration
?+5 Block, Destruction, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, One-handed

Nord
Home Province: Skyrim

Ablities/Powers:

?Resist Frost 50%
?Power: Battlecry

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Two-handed
?+5 Block, Light Armor, One-handed, Smithing, Speech

Redguard
Home Province: Hammerfell

Abilities/Powers:

?Resist Poison 50%
?Power: Adrenaline Rush

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 One-handed
?+5 Alteration, Archery, Block, Destruction, Smithing


Mer (Elven)

Altmer (High Elves)
Home Province: Summerset Isle

Abilities/Powers:

?+50 Magicka
?Power: Highborn

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Illusion
?+5 Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Restoration

Bosmer (Wood Elves)
Home Province: Valenwood

Abilities/Powers:

?Resist Poison 50%
?Resist Disease 50%
?Power: Command Animal

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Archery
?+5 Alchemy, Light Armor, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Sneak

Dunmer (Dark Elves)
Home Province: Morrowind

Abilities/Powers:

?Resist Fire 50%
?Power: Ancestor's Wrath

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Destruction
?+5 Alchemy, Alteration, Illusion, Light Armor, Sneak

Orc (Orsimer or Pariah Folk)
Home Province: Orsinium

Abilities/Powers:

?Power: Berserk

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Heavy Armor
?+5 Block, Enchanting, One-handed, Smithing, Two-handed

Beast

Argonian (Saxhleel)
Home Province: Black Marsh

Abilities/Powers:

?Resist Disease 50%
?Water Breathing
?Power: Histskin

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Lockpicking
?+5 Alteration, Light Armor, Pickpocket, Restoration, Sneak

Khajiit
Home Province: Elsweyr

Abilities/Powers:

?Claw Attacks
?Power: Eye of Night

Initial Skill Bonuses:

?+10 Sneak
?+5 Alchemy, Archery, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, One-handed

I found that on the UESP, no need to post it. The creation screen is still too dark.

I must be an idiot - I totally missed the character creator on my play through. I did get to choose a name and race, but never saw any options to change six, hair, features, etc. I am pretty happy with my characters abilities right now (at level 5), so I don't want to go back and do it again. Just not sure how I missed it???