I will be getting Dawnguard in the middle of next month and I wanna play it with a new character.

I heard it's meant for characters that are at least level 10, so I'm starting my character now.

I'd like to know if there's anything special I need to do in order to start a Dawnguard questline i.e. doing the main quest to a certain point or not?

Thanks in advance.

I would suggest not completing the main quest until it releases actually. Otherwise, nothing special needs to be done, because you will get the quest line from inn keepers or recruiters wandering around the cities. So I guess the answer to your question is you don't need to do anything special. I will say below in a spoiler tag where I would recommend you NOT go past in the main quest.

I'm planning on opening a new character too , I made unique build especially for Dawnguard.

There are no consistent bugs with finishing the main quest and I would say to finish the main quest for a nice little dialogue line that plays.


It is not recommended to load a save with not intentions on progressing through the DLC, even when it is out for PC and PS3 make sure you are done with everything you want to do prior to even loading Dawnguard as you could start losing many NPCs due to Vampire attacks and the vampire attacks can continue even after finishing the DLC (either side) as that happens in my save.

Just a quick question: Are the problems with losing NPCs due to vampire attacks fixed by a patch by now or should I still wait untill I get Dawnguard?

Thanks in advance.

I played around 30 hours with Dawnguard On.
There were NO attacks.

I Fast-Traveled to Riverwood at night in order to test a few mods , and there was one..

Yeah...I finished Dawnguard with no city attacks whatsoever save one near the Solitude stables due to fast traveling.

I think the vamp attacks are a bit "luck of the draw". Many people have had towns decimated whilst others, myself included, experienced very few or even none! Incidentally, if I fast travel to a town, I always travel to a place close to it and not the actual settlement.

I finished Dawnguard with only 2 attacks on cities. One was right after joining the Dawnguard. I walked to Morthal and spent 10 gold on a room for the night. The next morning when I left, a vampire lord and two lesser vampires were attacking outside the Jarl's palace. Lucky when I realized what was going on, all the guards were fighting the three vampires. The Jarl's house had two out front and the guard house was doing a guard change so when I ran up one guard was dead, the two vampires were dead and the vampire lord was almost dead. My blade finished him off.

The only other encounter I got was a vampire known as The Traveler. He would show up/respawn in Whiterun between Belathor's place and my breezehome. only at night and always easy to spot. I killed him every time I saw him without waiting for him to attack.

I have not had an attack since completing Dawnguard and I've fast traveled a bit since then which apparently triggers the attacks. This character had also completed the main questline as well as all other factions including a ton of radiant quests. Did not encounter any bugs.

Now I loaded up a mage character of mine that was lv 23ish. I mapped to Windhelm to chat with Ulfric when Durak, a dawnguard recuiter comes up and starts talking to me. Right in the middle of that he breaks conversation and we're in a battle with vampires attacking at the main gate. They got killed before I could react with Durak and about 6 stormcloaks and EVERY passerby had a weapon. It was pretty funny. Guess though I better complete Dawnguard if I wish to play her more as these random attacks are going to get bothersome. I hate having to baby sit critical NPCs that can be killed by vampires. My one and only dislike for Dawnguard.

Thanks for the info.

So I think I'll get Dawnguard now, at first it sounded like I could screw my game up when getting it, but appearingly it's not as bad.

As far as characters go for the DLC (which I am waiting for on PS3, but have read a lot concerning builds and whatnot) it depends on what you either a) want to RP or which is better for what build.

As far as I can tell VL is better for mage (or assassin) types, while werewolf suits warriors. I'm sure either can be used to great effect regardless based on playing expertise.

Playing on XBox 360:

For me the issues with DG are manageable and I would recommend playing it. The vampire attacks are a hassle and seem to happen to me every time I fast travel to a town and it's night when I arrive. For the most part, you can kill the vamps before too much damage is dealt and thanks to autosave, you can always try again should something go horribly awry. I've also noticed attacks in broad daylight, but they are much rarer, and still manageable.

The biggest issue I have is NPCs being killed while I am AWAY from town. I'll return to find a quest-giver dead with no signs of battle and no other bodies. What's more, these corpses can persist for quite some time. I noticed this mostly in Solitude and half of Winterhold being wiped out over time, without me witnessing it.

Another side effect that is peculiar, but not game-breaking I've noticed is a dramatic decline in dragons spawning. Nine times out of ten, the random event that spawns in cities or in the wilderness is a vampire attack and it appears these have replaced random spawning dragons. I have tons of shouts piling up and no souls to spend on them.

Once you finish DG however, the attacks cease completely (for me, anyway) and I'll only encounter a single random vampire occasionally out in the wild. Be prepared to save often and reload autosaves and potentially be committed to finishing the quest-line quickly. I handled it in three chunks, stopping to handle other quest-lines in between and managed to come out of all of it relatively unscathed. Less than five miscellaneous quest-givers are dead before having done their objectives, but nothing dramatically disappointing has happened.

I did the same thing. Started a new character for Dawnguard. She's level 50 now (PS3), and my husband (XBOX) says she'd probably be too powerful. Guess I'll keep making characters until it comes!

DUNMER!!!

For me (I'm still waiting for PS3) I made a dunmer werewolf, because i dont think that the VL is all that good.
(Thats cause i haven't played DG yet)