For my 1st character, I have a female imperial. 1h/shield, heavy armor, smithing, block, high speechcraft (persuasion variety). She's level 52 now, having done the MQ, Companions and all the other main faction quests, Thanes, Civil War (Stormcloak side to the end), and a host of side quests including most of the divine and daedric quests.

It's been a cakewalk, honestly. I'm playing the 1st game on Adept, having played Morrowind and Oblivion. I've barely thrown a spell, never used a restoration spell at all, I lockpick well, but have barely pickpocketed anything, and my sneak is all from crawling around in heavy armor with no perks. When I get caught sneaking I just stand up, sigh, and kill them all.

I'm decent with Alchemy (up into the 80s now) and Enchanting (up to like 75 now). Alchemy is a nice way to get rich, but I wanted to avoid the whole alchemy/enchanting/smithing spiral and I've never actually needed to bother.

My armor was orcish for 90% of the time, and I've never made an original piece of armor, just improved what I've had. At level 50 I finally gave in and upgraded to improved ebony and actually threw one enchantment on each piece (health, waterbreathing, fortify 1h). Whoppee, I'm still waaay over armor cap, even with the ebony match set glitch (also, don't like the ebony helmet much, sigh). I used a skyforge steel blade until I got an Akaviri sword; it was as good or better than any fancy magical blade out there.

It's been an easy, but enjoyable ride. I've enjoyed my 1st run-through thoroughly, and though my quest list is starting to dwindle I have the impression that there are a goodly number of quests I still haven't done yet (and some I'll never do on purpose).


My 2nd character is a skinny khajit named Fabien who is doing 2 daggers, stealth, and light armor (so far). He could care less about the humans squabbling with one another, or the Thalmor, and the very idea of dragons scares the willies out of him. This is a lot tougher run up to level 22 (so far). I have to pick my fights and be willing to run when encountering either too many opponents or too strong an opponent. Daggers just don't dish it out as well in 1h combat, and I don't have the perks / skill yet to make up for it. I suspect things will get a lot easier when I head for Riften or out west of Falkreath, but I'm still knocking around the Whiterun area. Also, I suspect that as I mature the skills & perks that he is going to get nearly as unstoppable as character #1.



Overall, I give Skyrim an A-. I've modded very little (like putting in invisible helmets, but I don't like mucking with the basic mechanics until I've played the game to death). I wish I could buy mannequins and weapons/shield racks to hang up, or have one heck of a lot more of them. It would be fun to be able to cover the walls with shields and trophies and move mannequins around to fill my rooms to hang all the armor of my famous victims. As it is, I have a collection of dwemer bowls that would stagger your imagination (imagine throwing hundreds of dwemer bowls down stairs one by one into a basemant). I had to make 10 trips out of one major dwemer facility to get all the bowls.

My 1st char had a nice little collection of dwemer artifacts. One of my others collected helmets and sheilds from each hold. My newest char is also collecting helmets, sheilds and probably dwemer artifacts as well. I try to get the sheilds w/o "me" killing the guards. All my chars collect books.

I wish their was a place in the house to hang all the Masks.

Woah nice dwemer bowl collection.

My current Orc character Lob Shephli is into learning the ways of enchanting and conjuration. He also loves collecting books and skulls. Right now he is learning the basics such as 2 handed weapons, heavy armor, smithing,blocking which is alot of fun ha ha,increasing stamina to monstrous levels for power acttacks. My Orc is also looking for the fabled Lord Stone which will give him an immense defensive bonus. Til then he is blessed mightily by the Warrior Stone.

Much of this characters nature comes from things i have learned from the brutally thorough and beyond fanatical correct Skyrim Game Guide with 655 pulse pounding pages of gaming guidance from master author David S. J. Hodgson and those who aided him with much scholarly passion.