Game Skyrim Forum

The worst thing about oblivion in my opinion, was the level scaling, and more specifically the fact that unless you consistently got +5s, all enemies eventually became tougher than you. Now, I have heard a worrying amount of discussion about the same thing occuring in skyrim. Personally I am not at a high enough level to be able to discern whether this is a problem or not, but should I be watching what I level, making sure to stick to certain things? Because I have been sort of breezing through, not really worrying about what I'm levelling (just sticking to my general character idea), as I thought this level scaling thing wasn't really a problem any more. Am I going to be sourly suprised upon reaching the higher levels, that I am suddenly weaker than I was at the beginning of the game>?

No, the system is different from Oblivion mainly because the secondary stats (health/stamina/mana) are entirely controlled by you as you level and not by what you level. Also ironically levelling just the crafting skills in this game makes you more powerful than just levelling the combat skills.

Not as such. Enemies get locked and dungeons have set level ranges they won't go beyond. That is, if you have trouble with a dungeon, you can still overlevel it by coming back later using one of two methods. As well, the entire scaling of the world has max cap that's 30 levels lower than the player can achieve.

Some have reported getting one hit kills on them from bandits. Has not happened to me except when I stand there and take a power attack without blocking or dodging, and that is rare to come across this enemy.

I am at level 41/42 and I find enemies that are much weaker than me, most that are near the same level as me, and I find some that are tougher than me. However, you will find enemies that are tougher than you at most lower levels as the game is made that way. In other words, stay out of the mountains until you are ready. If you play the game and don't grind to create an super character or one that can create great weapons but has no skills to use them, then you will find the enemies are about what they should be: Most are handled by your characters, some are a challenge, a couple will make you want to come back later when you are ready.

You may find it difficult just when you reach the treshold of a new "tier" of enemies, such as when dragons become blood dragons, bandit highwaymen becomes marauders and so on.

Some places will have enemies with fixed levels though, so if you get clobbered badly at the entrance of a dungeon, it's probably a not-so-subtle hint to go elsewhere

There is a level that some enemies stop leveling.

For example:
The maximum level that a bandit chief can achieve is 28.

There are a number of posts that I've seen recently that state if you power level enchanting, smithing, alchemy, your character will increase in level, but it's combat capability will not. So, you may go back into the dungeons where enemies are your level, but their combat capability is higher than yours, and you can/will be one-shot.

Is this correct? Or not.

I would think that with many different players saying this, there must be something to it.

falmer are op in numbers

Unless you *really* try to mess things up, that shouldn't happen. (if you level crafting massively, and don't make anything with your new-found ability, then yeah, but that would be really silly).


It is possible to trigger 'not-so-random encounters' that may be extremely difficult for your character.

I've done pretty good on my game. I can kill all enemies I come across and I usually die several times when fighting bosses until I come up with a strategy to beat them and then I win. I have put all my perks into 1H, block and armor for the most part of my early game with a few to archery. Last few levels, I've started boosting smithing and enchanting so the enemies are a bit stronger now as I haven't increased my offensive abilities but it's still manageable. I'm about level 32 now

Pretty much it. People who spend a bunch of time grinding crafting will level their character up past what their combat skills can handle. Plus, they have not spent the time on low level enemies learning how to fight them (dodging, blocking, etc). One would think that the fancy armor would help, but without the commiserate skills in place, it does not matter how uber your armor is, your still going to have a low defense or offense ability.

Yes, some enemies will be higher level and stronger than you. but that's a good thing. if you could just go around and one hit everything and take no damage it would be boring. even if they were the same level as you, it would be boring, the stronger the enemies the better i say

Bandit Marauders have one hit killed me with spells, and two or three hit killed me with bows while wearing Legendary Ebony Armor. Same goes for Falmer Nightprowler and Shadowmaster archers. I've been playing with a mage/warrior hybrid character and raised all stats about equally, so my health may have ended up a bit too low for my level though (currently 250 base at level 41)

wait wait your playing a warrior with only 15 increases spent in hp and you have had 40 increases to spend??

did you start as a mage so increasing magica then switch later?