I find that having a rich backstory for my character isn't enough for me anymore. I need to find something that gives the character some uniqueness. For example, I'm thinking of creating a savage bosmer, fashioned a bit after american indians, who takes reverence of nature to the extreme and will slay anyone that harms it in any way. He respects the green pact even outside valenwood so he only uses animal parts for his alchemy. That's unique enough to change the gameplay in a pretty drastic way.

I also read some months ago of a player that had a sage character; he collected every book in the game and read them all in his endless pursuance of knowledge. That was his raison d'être. I'll definitely give that a try, once magic is more fleshed out (hopefully in hearthfire!).

I'm wondering if anyone else has characters with unique characteristics that alter the gameplay radically.

That Bosmer idea was a pretty good idea I'll have to give it a go
Personally though as close to that as I come is including a " kink " in my builds armor/defenses. For example if I'm making a warrior class ( of any sort ) I'll include a " kink " in his/her armor/defenses, I'll make them weak to magic in general or a certain destruction magic ( seeing how this is pretty much all NPC's use ).

Not so much as yours, but the only particularly interesting character I have made was very similar to what your thinking of. He was a Bosmer with war paint who I decided to only let use Fur Armor and Bound Bow with the smallest shield I could find (something like a buckler - Bloody Targe in the end - was restricted to Xbox 360 at the time) and would tank while his conjured minions killed things. He was basically an Apache of sorts crossed with a very hardcoe Bosmer to the point I wouldn't harm wild life (got interesting when I'd get chased by a pack of Bears and Sabercats ).

Now I'm on PC I think I'll give him another shot with mods this time, hopefully make wildlife friendly to my character (if you know any mod that does that, I'd love to know)!


The olde combat triangle eh . There is a mod that alters combat to the point where arrows do more damage to mages in cloth and magic does more damage to warriors in armor (cooking them alive, using their own armor as an oven kind of thing), you should check it out.

The mod Skyrim Redone (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286) includes a skill tree which allows you further learning about groups of animals, eventually allowing you to make certain types completely passive towards you, with the exception of Dragons and humanoids. However, this mod also completely revamps a lot of gameplay aspects, which may not appeal to anybody who enjoys the vanilla way of things. But that mod does do what you asked about, so it may be worth checking out... I have yet to play it, but probably will try it on my next character build...

The creator of SkyRE says it isn't Dawnguard compatible atm and is suggesting people to hold off until he makes it so to avoid any kind of bugs, that is what I'm waiting for.

EDIT: NOPE! ITS OFFICIALLY DAWNGUARD COMPATIBLE AS OF -- well I would look except the Nexus is trying to tell me 'No files have been uploaded yet. when I click its files tab. The Nexus is literally useless these days.

I like your Bosmer idea. I've thought about something along those lines myself. Sort of a tribal flair.

I plan to make an Altmer Mage who does no guilds, and mostly wanders, but will do quests to help individuals. Also a Nord mage as a challenge, who is half Breton (explaining the magic). LOL

Sounds like an interesting mod but I'm a console player so no mods for me

Damn, I wish they'd include a platform feature in this forum where you have to put what Platform(s) you own the game on in your profile, above the Joined entry or something. The amount of console players I've accidently teased with mods not knowing they weren't on PC is insane, I feel like a grade A [censored].

Nah, speaking as a console player you didn't come across as a dike, just that you didn't know I was a console player If the whispers are true us console players may just get mods with the next gen of consoles ( 360 anyway ) so perhaps in 3-5 years I'll be joining the ranks of the mod enthusiasts, not that I don't already poke my nose into Nexus and window shop.

Oh, yes, I've asked for that for years. I can't count the number of hours I've wasted writing up detailed answers to questions, only to be informed - later - that the person is on an XBox or PS3, making all or most of my answer worthless. Almost as annoying is asking which platform the questioner is playing on, and waiting for hours or days to get an answer.

I think they should get rid of the stupid kindergarten stars below our icons and instead put something useful there: the platform(s) we play on.

You could always decide to include it into you signature, but like I said.... Speaking as a console player we really don`t mind as long as your not being a dike about it, ie : putting us down for choosing console over PC or getting on like an elitist jerk.
It`s a common and simple mistake which can be forgiven, at least that`s how I take it

As it stands now, the best chance consoles have of having mods is the PS3 and it's integration of Steam. Sorry for the bad news, hilarious random bunny though.


What? Be quiet with you console peasant, back to the depths of your outdated hardware and unscaped resolutions!.....

Joking ...

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Yes, yes yes, that and give posts a 5 minute timer to allow them to be edited without those damn... actually let me demonstrate.

EDIT: 5 seconds later...

yes, welcome to the world of roll playing.

so far the only character for skyrim i have made to do something like this was an archer that was intent on exploring every location in skyrim.

of course that was mostly just a guise for me just learning and memorizing the all the map locations. once i have done that i will start RP'ing in earnest, creating a whole story which will involve several characters i create.

Those words....do they roughly translate to a reason for living? Too lazy to Google

Anywho, I've never bothered with a real deep backstory. I just develop a playstyle and base my character's decisions off of his skills or even his appearance. I don't put too too much thought into it so long as I can still look at him and go "Yeah, that's something he'd do."

Though in my new playthrough, my guy is more of a duelist, independent woodsman rogue. He's trying to make the best of a world torn apart by war, lying low and working on building a home out in the wilderness.

There's already a Devkit for the use of production companies which is what Beth used to show off Skyrim during release, so the tech./ability is there but it's Sony and MS holding it back because of money issues ( where in they wouldn't get any ) and the fact that it opens up for security breaches, breaking of console / game if done incorrectly. The next gen console should have more then enough umph to run mods but once again it lies in the hands of Sony and M$ to allow it, if there's a profit to be made without much risk then they will go for it, but as of right now it's too risky and not enough money to be made so your right it's not in the foreseeable future but that future is looking brighter the closer we get to the next gen. consoles.

I tend to just go with the flow of things, depending on my character's skills. I have never really come up with a true back story, but I do fall victim to loosing myself once the story has begun.

So you want to pay for mods!?

A PC is basically the same as an Xbox if you don't like the keyboard and mouse setup, replace your Xbox with a PC and get a 1080p Monitor and replace whatever T.V you use with it, hook up an Xbox pad and its literally like playing on an Xbox 1800.

That way you get sooooo much for free, and extremely cheap games!

well according to a tweet (or something like that) from todd howard they were making some sort of progress in convincing microsoft to allow modding on the xbox. however if it does happen i imagine it would work in a similar way to how playermade content is made available in games such as Team fortress 2. being that the mods would cost a small amount of money and some of that money goes to microsoft.

We're getting a little off topic but to answer your question..... Yes I would pay for mods as long as the price was reasonable, $5 per mod depending on the size of said mod. If it was a HUGE mod that added more land mass,weapons,quests like that of The Shivering isles then I would happily pay $10+ ( or the same price as the average expansion ) As for the computer, a lap top is all that my budget can handle, it takes me 1-2 years to save up for a new console ( I'm a family man so money is tight most of the time ) yet alone a decent gaming PC.

We should cool it now on the " mods for console " discussion, don't want to get the topic closed cause we strayed off course, but my answer above applies to your post as well.

Back on topic.........

I don't give my characters anything so grand as a reason to live, but I do give them little quirks that influence the way I play. My Nord, for instance, distrusts anything that smacks of magic, so she won't use potions (kiss healing brews goodbye), enchanted gear (vanilla weapons, armour and jewelry only) or spells (obviously) and will even go so far as to avoid looting whatever magical artifacts she comes across in her travels. That awesome staff you get at the end of a certain Daedric prince's quest? Yeah, she chucked that into Lake Ilinalta. And then there's my Orc, who feels compelled to axe the face of anyone who insults him. And I mean anyone. It certainly alters your gaming experience when you can't visit half the holds on the map because everyone in them wants you dead after you punched a stranger for daring to call you a milk-drinker.