I've never played a melee character in any game before. I'm wondering how to handle crowd control.

I don't want to use a follower or conjuration. I don't mind using a potion occasionally but I don't want to do it constantly.

What are my options for crowd control with those constraints?

shield bash will stagger them, and so can power attacks. At 100 one handed or two handed skill you backwards power attacks have a 25% chance of paralyzing your target.

destruction spells that take up an area are nice, but if your trying to concentrate more on Mellee, try shouting.

Not getting surrounded is pretty big part of being a melee character, especially in the early game. In indoor situations, you can use doorways and corridors to your advantage. When outdoors, use your terrain to your advantage. Weave through trees, jump on the rocks, jump down. Disengage time to time and run away. Sprinting can be useful time to time. This is a good practice in general because you have higher regeneration rate than most enemies. Except trolls, of course.

Are you doing pure melee? I use archery sometimes to soften up the enemy before engaging them in a melee fight sometimes.

Early on I liked having companion with ranged attacks. Particularly Marcurio works really well for this. Later you won't need a companion but early on it helps a lot since your damage is pretty bad and your armor is also sub par. Block a lot because the shield really absorbs a lot of incoming damage. Block then attack between blows. Shield bash too as that will cause them to pause giving you an opening to attack. Multiple enemies are really tough early on. Try to isolate them as much as possible. Doorways or tight hallways can keep them down to single file meaning only one attacker at a time. Outside you'll have to move a lot using the terrain to your advantage. It's not easy at first but later on you'll be taking on multiple foes easily.

I found crowds are only problems in tight spaces. If you outside, timing your attacks while backing up will help alot.

Yes, I'm sure he is capable of reading the skill tree as well. As far as crowd control with a melee character, a maxed out unrelenting force is your best friend. No matter how many enemies there are, it will send them all flying

This is the main thing. Use the ground to your advantage. Fall back to a narrow corridor or doorway. Even if you are in the open, you can keep backpedaling and fighting at the same time. That tends to keep them from all getting at you at once. A shield bash will stagger an opponent. You can do that and then either back up, or swing on a second enemy while the first is off-balance.

Unreleting force works also,as well as everything stated above.
Warriors need to learn how to move and really keep there head on a swivel to be able to keep track of all your enemies.
In the two-handed perk tree there is a perk that lets your side way power attacks hit everyone in front of you.great if your going for two-handed.
For one-handed shiels users powerbash and the last block perk,I forget the name right now can be very usefull.

Sword and Board (One Hand Weapons and Shields)
Prioritize your targets and keep moving. Choose the enemy with the lightest armor first and stay focused on him. Keep him staggered with shield bashes and keep circling around so that his buddies are stuck on the far side of him and can't reach you as easily. You'll burn a lot of stamina so, at low levels, be sure to keep a good stock of Apple Cabbage Soup on hand until you start getting the more powerful stamina potions.

If you come up against a mix of melee and ranged (either archers or spell casters) try and take out the ranged enemies first as they can keep attacking you as long you're still in sight. The exception to this rule is if you get a boss mage/archer with much higher hit points in which case bash him but then kill his low hit point escorts first. The exception to that exception is you're fighting a necromancer or vampire as they can resurrect their fallen minions one time and you'll just have to kill them all over again.

If you're fighting in a dungeon don't be too proud to back off around a corner, either behind a pillar or around a corner of a corridor so they have to come at you one at a time. Also don't be too proud to run off long enough to cast a healing spell on yourself. If you're out of doors don't be too proud to sprint away far enough that they stop chasing you so that you can come back and take them on your terms not theirs. Also, if you still have anough hit points, dropping of even a shoulder high ledge will send them searching for a safer way down to get a you giving you some time to heal up.

DPS (Dual Wielding and Two Handed Weapons)
Crowd control with these two methods is a lot rougher. Without a shield your bash effects will be much weaker with two handers and non existant with dual wielding. Stay focused on power attacks and doing as much damage as quick as you can. Be ready to run and heal a lot more often and a lot sooner in the fight.

3 words...fus ro dah

if you're a 2 handed fighter and using an unenchanted hammer then elemental fury is your friend

Get used to the pattern in fighting. It's block, shield bash and two or three strikes (depending on the speed of the opponent) then repeat. This keeps your health high and their health constantly dripping away. When fighting dragons with melee, wait for them to bite you or when they're about to breathe fire/ice at you then shield bash and attack before repeating.

It's very easy if you remember to stick to this, stock up on health potions, beef up your health and stamina, enchanting can be a godsend as well.

Invest in the perk that deflects 50% of magic attacks when raising your shield, high level mages will be your bane as a melee fighter, particularly if they're spawning ice spells. Another good perk is the one that allows you to run at full speed with your shield raised, allowing you to catch up with mages who are backing away from you, a lot of the times you may just need to flee if you encounter a high level ice spell spawning mage (some types of vampire are terrible for it) at a low level.

Ice Form. Effectively paralyses the entire squadron bar one. Saved me in plenty of Falmer fights.

It's very easy. Strafe and swing. Use unrelenting force to disperse large groups. Single out weaker enemies and quickly strike them down. As a melee character, you should ideally be built as a tank, and capable of sustained combat.

Pour points into health, use unrelenting force on large crowds, slow time can be good for crowd control when you have more than one word for it, ice form is also good - use it on the boss of the group and mop up the weaker guys, so you can focus on the big guy when he thaws.

Also, if you fight with one handed weapons, learn to constantly keep on the move whilst you fight. Making yourself a hard target is just as good as blocking. If you go with two handers, take advantage of the longer reach. Don't let em near you, or if you do make them pay dearly for every inch.

Regarding armor: I found out the game does not really care if you are wearing light or heavy armor. If the game wants you to be beaten to ground by 1 or 2 hit, no armor in the world will save you. So I use light armor with melee builds, they make you more agile. Heavy armor on low levels feels too gimped (slow movement, even slow swings, much more endu drain).

I have an ultimate melee character so I can help a lot. This is what I did. 2 handed weapons, heavy armor, smithing and enchanting. That is what you need.

Get to the point that you can make Daedric items. Follow these steps:
1. Make the armor and weapons
2. Get the best enchanting potion you can and enchant the armor with perks to improve damage boost heavy armor a bit and whatever else you might want. I chose sneak and archery too since I had so many enchantment options with the dual enchant perk.
3. Enchant the weapon with a damaging bonus and soul trap. If you find the Firey Soul Trap enchantment use that. Set the soul trap soul the time you can trap after a hit is only 1 second(you don't need anymore and it gives you many more uses)
4. Enchant an amulet and ring with a damage bonus and another enchantment of your choosing(I chose magic restistance due to issues with mages)
5. Get the best blacksmithing potion of your choosing, try to get to two as they don't last long. Upgrade all of the Daedric items your using to Legendary. This should give you an armor rating of over 950 with all of the Heavy Armor perks that improve defense.

That's it. Message me with any questions as I am happy to help.

If you do this right you will have a character that can kill %90 of enemies on Master difficulty simply by running and hitting them with a 2h Sword and that includes Ancient Dragons. No tactics necessary. Hell I throw in shouts just to spice things up.

My character is lvl 58, but I've been near invincible since around lvl 40.

You use strategic positioning. Get yourself in a narrow spot where enemies can't mass you. Stun lock enemies with shield bash- especially two handed whose attacks really hurt if they can land them.

Get elemental resistance, which helps with mages.

The only character who felt really overpowered to me was my warrior. She had high smithing, though.

Besides bashing and kocking down/freezin people with shouts, try paralysis poisons. You can paralyze 1 and take care of another. Though it can feel cheap if you just repeatedly use poisons and whale on people while they are down. Thought that is the point of poison, to avoid fighting your enemy at full power.

Not true. With Ebony and Daedric armors you can't be one hit killed by anything. Heavy armor has twice as much armor potential as light and there is a perk that makes it completely weightless when worn. It gains all of the light armor benefits with no drawbacks.

You can be 1 hit killed no matter what if your armor rating and hp is low enough compared to the enemy's attack damage. And both heavy and light can reach maximum protection, so it is more of a long or short term investment, since heavy reaches it faster. But light armor only requires 3 perks to get weightless, and for 1 additional perk you get 50% faster stamina regeneration.

The biggest choice really is asthetics.

Heavy gives far more defense far faster. I was at max protection at lvl 30.

Heavy armor in the beginning of the game gives a little more protection,but by level 30 with some smithing and armor perks either armor should be at the cap or very near the cap.
I'm playing a heavy armor warrior right now,only at level 8,but I liked my light armor character much better.

It all comes down to play style I guess.

Thanks for all the great tips. I've been making progress.

I just went to a cave to get an item there. There were four bandits outside. I was able to split them up and deal with them.

Inside there is a section where I have to fight the boss and two others. There is no place narrow enough to provide a bottleneck.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me to try exiting the cave to see if they would follow me. They didn't. But when I went back in, only the boss was at the entrance. I took care of him and then went further and dealt with the other two.

Make strong use of the become ethereal shout, wait for your stamina to regenerate when ethereal, then get a free power attack followed by another power attack. This is brilliant with 2handers utilising the sweep perk, multiple enchantment damage and stagger followed by another power attack. Also incredibly useful for dual wielders to keep unleashing that triple spin attack.

You also have shield/weapon bashing, try and get the perk for power bashing as soon as possible, then always power bash. You don't use much more stamina but you increase the stagger.

I'd suggest relying on skill rather than using cheap methods like HEBushido suggested, I play on master and never allow myself to go above 460-500 rating with a shield (obviously at the highest level, lower levels I have far lower ratings).

You can dodge most enemies attacks if you're careful, frost trolls for example are stupidly easy to dodge, get an attack in, then move back again, throw a few staggers in too.