So I was just playing along as a Nord, Sword & Shield in light armor. Not too difficult really. Then about 8th level I decided I would start really working on my Smith skill. By that I mean I was going to stop carrying around those 40+ iron ingots and make some daggers out of them.

Well I am now 20th level. I’m wearing a full suit of upgraded glass armor. Lydia is with me and she’s wearing a full suit of upgraded ebony. We are freaking unstoppable. Seriously I feel like I broke the game.

I noted that if I had not done any blacksmithing I would still be wearing leather armor, and maybe a few pieces of elven. But that’s it, and it wouldn’t even be upgraded. My weapon would be a dwarven sword.

Honestly due to using the Smith skill and making my own stuff I am more than twice as powerful as I would have been without it. So … how can you play this game without it? It appears to me that any rogue or warrior MUST max out the Smith skill as fast as possible.

I like the blacksmithing, but I fear that Bethesda made it too much of a requirement as far as needed skills. One way they could have fix this is to let you hire a smith to do the same work for you, that way you can still get the good stuff without having to raise the skill yourself, it would only cost you gold.

Another problem is that it also makes it required to use perks (those rare and precious perks) on the Smith skill. Heavy armor guys can at least just go up one side of the tree, but a light armor person (if they want the better weapons also) must go up both sides of it.

Is the Smithing skill too much of a requirement the way it is? Could you survive at all at upper levels without it? Thoughts?

Enchanting and smithing sure need a little rebalancing.

And you can indeed survive at upper level without it. Some would actually say it's bad to invest on smithing because the level-scaling will make your charcater unable to kill anything if you get a few levels from upgrading smithing. I disagree with that, as smithing basically lets you upgrade your weapons and armor as much as it being worth 30 skill points of one-handed/two-handed and 30 skill points of light armor/heavy armor.

Well, no one is forcing you to wear that precious armor. How about making a profit out of it instead? Play the game like a normal casual gamer would, exploring this and that on its own and just sell the armor you smith.

Level 31 and have never touched smithing, enchanting or used a companion. The game is going perfectly fine

Also, it's the difficulty below expert

So you have no problem with never having Dragon armor, or Daedric armor/weapons?

I can see how a mage would never need it. But rogues and warriors it's just a must.

I'm afraid that if I put my character back into whatever armor he could find now that he'd be so weak that anything would kill him (and Lydia).

I see a conflict here. You say that it's too powerful, you're "unstoppable", and you feel you "broke the game".

Then you wonder if it's too required?


Why would an overbalanced, "broken", level of power ever be "required"? (i.e, if it's "too much", wouldn't that make it more than what's necessary?)



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Personally, I can't really relate to the problem. But that's because I greatly slowed my leveling of Smithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting (in the low teens) because I thought I was leveling ahead of my combat abilities - everything was one-shotting me. So at level 22, I've got mid-30's Smithing, and just made myself some Superior Gilded Elven armor to go with the other elven bits I've found. I'm also not using a companion (I never liked them in OB & FO3).

Needless to say, combat's a bit more of a struggle than it seems to be for you. But it's not out of any deliberate attempt to "gimp myself" and "self nerf" (or whatever other complaints people level when you suggest they do something other than the absolute best). It's just the way it seemed right to play.

I`m lvl 30 in steel full plate but I choose to lvl 1 handed, heavy armor, and block. Never touched smithing at all and I`ll bet my little nord is just as indestructible. I could be using ebony for even more def but the steel full plate just looks to hard to let go. The bets part about all these different perks is they made them so you can go whatever path you want. With all the different options available and the various playstyles people have, there`s no reason to turn it into a cookie cutter game. Anyway once you get high enough the daedric will drop and be found in chests. If you feel the game is too easy now that you have this good armor, turn up the difficultyand see if that feels any better.

i put one pt into smithing and i didn't find it very useful...
i have a TON of ore/ingots in my house though, guess i'm a HOARDER?

Dragon armor from what I've heard is sadly not as good as it should be, given the theme of this game.

Daedric can be gotten elsewhere.

I don't see the problem here?

It's not required it's just way too good to not pick if you are a min/maxer. Many many people will play the game to their heart's content and never touch smithing/enchanting.. they just won't have it as easy as if they did and they won't know the difference anyway so why does it matter.


Shocked really I am, one point you don't say.. you literally saw everything there was to see guess everyone else is wrong.


You can't upgrade Daedric to Legendary without the perk for it so who cares if you can 'get it elsewhere'. The difference between it un-upgraded and Legendary is just momumental. I can find a 30 damage bow and use it to play the game, or I can find a 30 damage bow and upgrade it to a 60 damage bow for the cost of one ingot I bought off an NPC for 300 gold because I perked smithing.

I've kinda invested too heavily in smithing maybe. I'm nearly about to make myself some daedric, and I'm only level 25.

I doubt you are playing at Master Difficulty... So BRING IT UP !

It's nice to get to look stylish in full glass armor early on.

Well I'm not far from Dragon Armor now, I suppose I'll be there by level 25. Which is fine as I got about 50 pieces of Dragon bones and scales in my house.

It really wasn't my intent to min/max the character, I just wanted something better than leather and it just went from there. What surprised me was how much more powerful a full suit of upgraded armor and weapons can make someone.

Who says you have to wear fully upgraded elven and/or ebony armor? If you are bothered by how "strong" you are, then wander Skyrim wearing a tunic and carry an iron sword or something.

The game is what you make it.

Agree on this partially, but if it too easy to become powerful, the challenge seems lessened. It's like, ok I RP a poor catman with a rusty dagger trying to get by, but if all else fails I can pop on my Glass Armor and my magic SupaStabba +10 for a while.

Like a god just out slumming it...

Sandbox is fine, but I wasn't expecting sandbox...

Level 14 Stealth Archer and have never smithed or put any perks in light armor nor do I roll with companions. I can in most cases I never get hit because 3x Sneak damage with Lvl3 overdraw and 10% Crits drops most everything in their tracks on Adept difficulty.

I understand.

This thread is the best indication of how powerful and flexible this new level system really is.

No its not, it might make it easier but its not a must. I went pretty far before I made a suit of dwarvin and later steel plate and then never went any higher.
Mostly because steel plate is the best looking and more believable armor I have seen in the game and I have seen everything in heavy armor but a full suit of Orc armor, but even it looked fairly good and believable. (in theory from the menu)

I ran through the MQ with my first character using a dwarven GS and steel plate armor at level 26 because I was ready to start over due to some bugged issues with him.
Tonight I plan on starting a new character but have not picked between a mage or a thief.

You contradict yourself here. You feel like you broke the game yet you also feel it's a requirement? I can tell you it's not. I've not put a single perk into Smithing and my Dual Dagger/Archery Dark Elf has no problems at level 21 wearing leather armor. I have a special set of leather armor but it's quest related and not made through Smithing. It's simply a choice. If you concentrate on Smithing early you will be weak in combat skills. That's counteracted a bit by the better gear you'll have though. There's multiple routes to the same end.

This

/thread.

This has been the core of TES games. They are an open sandbox for us to play a character as freely or as restricted as we want. Remember we don't have to do anything in the games. We could play a simple character, or we could play a archmage. I've been playing since about 2am on Friday. (midnight release) I've killed about 15 dragons, and I am wearing a full set of exquisite orcish armor. Lydia is wearing exquisite steel and using a skyforged longsword. I'm using the Battle axe you get form the companion quest. I've done a bit of enchanting but nothing major. The game is on its default difficulty level. I'm having a great time. I don't think its unbalanced at all if you don't just go all out at the beginning. I mean sure, I could use transmute and change all my iron into silver, silver into gold, and power level my smithing to 100 but then where is the fun in that? Personally None... its tantamount to cheating as far as i'm concerned and I won't cheat until I've beaten the main story at least once.

But that just me. Play the game how you want to play it. Thats why TES games are the way they are, and what makes them so great.

everyone keeps saying "nobody is forcing you to do this, just explore the game" and that is not a viable answer. If fact, it's a [censored] answer. Most people play these games to be the baddest badass they can be while they are exploring and enjoying the game. If the game is not working right when we get to be a badass then something is wrong.

Do mages need smithing, too or are they safe with enchanting?

I have no smithing skills, and I do fine.