I've played through skyrim twice now, and i'm half way through a mage play through after doing a pure melee and pure sneak/archer builds. Now I'm ready for my first roleplaying build. I was thinking of a spellsword, but I rarely fallback on destruction spells they just seem to go neglected after a few levels. So this time around, I was thinking of a "Sword Singer", the legendary warriors of the Yokudans.

But, since we can't get Shehai in Skyrim, here's what I've come up with:

Race: Reguard

Primary Skills:

One handed, with the following perks, 5/5 Armsman, Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Critical charge and 3/3 Bladesman.

Conjuration: Bound blade(acting as a "shehai") with the following perks, Novice Conjuration, Conjuration Dual Casting (for the increased sword duration to offset low magicka pool/regeneration), Mystic binding, Soul Stealer and oblivion binding. Now, i'm not sure about the perks for Apprentice/Expert or Master level skills -- Since I dont know if any Bound sword spells are in that level range -- Cant seem to get the Wiki to load for me either to find out, so some help with that would be appreciated.

Secondary/undecided skills:


Alteration/And or restoration: For the defence boosts and healing potential provided, since I will not be using either light or heavy armour -- a simply desert garb will suffice for a warrior of great skills in swordmanship... right?

Enchanting: Since I wont be using armour as said before, alot of enchanting will be needed on the clothing I will be using for that bit of extra protection.



Not sure what else though.

Oppinions?

I actually really like the idea, I would def try to use Alteration for some sort of protection. Please keep us updated, I'm really curious to see if this works out

I agree with SkoomaFiend in recommending the "skin" spells in Alteration to help with some damage reduction. You could even try to go up the Alteration tree and boost them fairly well since you won't be wearing any armor at all. Gets kinda pricey on magicka though.

The lower part of the Restoration tree might come in handy for this too. The perks to restore stamina with heals, increase the magicka regen rate and the one for a nice big auto-heal if your health drops to 10% might come in handy. The last of those requires a fairly high Restoration skill though, iirc.

With regards to the conjured weapons, there's a few things to consider. There aren't any additional weapons or more powerful weapon conjure spell books. Once you learn the bow, axe and sword, those are the only ones you'll get. They start out with a base damage similar to Dwarven, but end up with a base damage at Daedric once you invest in the Mystic Binding perk. Your 1h skills and perks will help improve damage from there, but you won't ever match the kind of damage you'd get with a smithed weapon that's improved via smithing. Still, I think this method will keep things much more interesting and challenging throughout. You'll have to work a little more for your kills later on.

The other thing is that you'll want to watch your supply of soul gems. Since your weapons will always be capturing souls, and you can't swap out to another non-soul binding weapon, you'll probably end up with some greater or grand gems with lesser or petty souls in them. You can drop them on the ground to clear the soul from them easily enough, though. The catch is that when you go to enchant, the listing doesn't show what gem you're using, only the soul captured, so if you're not careful you could blow a grand gem that has a petty soul in it on a minor skill-up enchant. There are also some mods out there (if you're on the PC) that will limit the souls to their appropriate gems, and the capture will fail if no appropriate gem is available in your inventory.

In regards to the soul trapping issue with soul gems, It's a problem I commonly had in oblivion too when using Umbra -- my planned workaround it to simply use black soulgems/black star when enchanting -- the rest can be sold as generic loot unless I use it to enchant items before selling them for a little boost in profit.

One thing i am wondering -- will bound blade level up one hand, conjuration, or both? If not one hand was thinking of using the Ghost Blade or Drainheart sword instead (the former can at least be upgraded) to level up my blade skill but still stay in line with the Sword Singer theme. Not sure if theres any other incoporeal swords though -- UESP doesnt seem to be caught up with the content of Skyrim so no pictures, and the SOPA is preventing me from checking out the gallery on the Skyrim wiki.

Are you sure about the restoration/alteration? I appreciate that Redguard get magic skill bonuses in Skyrim, but that's quite a retcon with their supposed distrust of Nudri-Hi, and following Shehai Shen She Ru might reinforce that bias.

Black soul gems can also capture lesser souls, i had it happen to me recently. Not sure what i killed though but it must have been human?! maybe its a glitch

The Alteration would simply be to ofset low defence values, though I am tempted to simply use Enchantment for this purpose instead. Not completely lore friendly, but neither is using conjuration.

If you can ignore the fact that bound sword != spirit sword and other such lore-based problems (I couldn't, as I'm extremely anol about such things), I'd say go for it, with alteration instead of enchanting. Alternatively, you can do the following:

Level up as a normal Redguard warrior. Level smithing normally. Obtain the Ghostblade and RP it as being your shehai. Improve the crap out of the Ghostblade through smithing as you level it up. You won't need any magic, and you can take blocking.

Yeah, but your explanation for using conjuration makes sense, and I am pretty sure the finest swordsmen in the world could knock up an enchanted weapon or two, again justifiable by the rp ['then meditating on, and cursing, the souls of his slain enemies, he sang his sword into flame']. Good case for Dragonshouts as well if you don't want to rp Dovahkiin. It's when you justify everything as something that it's not, you might get less enjoyment. Don't think for a moment I am trying to tell you what to do, just suggesting.

Nice work, Solidor. Good attention to detail. I find crafting my own characters in this kind of way very rewarding. I hope you're getting a lot out of it too.

Wikipedia is down in protest of SOPA in case you are wondering.

I'm currently Roleplaying a witcher, wandering from town to town doing witcher's work. No fast travel beyond carriages. Its a ton of fun. Only guild I belong to is the companions as I sorta see them as a TES version of the school of the wolf.

Good idea for the Dragonshouts, one I wouldn't have considered otherwise. As for alteration -- I'll not be using it in the end, I rarely use it on a pure mage build (some how, I survive) so I doubt it would get much use on a melee character either. Since I wont be leveling up anything but One handed as a primary focus, I'll use Conjuration until I can get my hands on the ghostly blade and upgrade it to it's maximum potential. So I'll have alot of perks to spare -- which I'm considering putting into Alchemy (Since their distrust of most forms of magic is so strong, I imagine the Ra'Gada would be quite adept at making salves and other ointments to aid in healing) since I wont have alot of perks to worry about I can experiment with the conjuration side of things fairly harmlessly without messing up my characters potential effectiveness, plus I might even put some perks into speach since I havent really had a chance to use it yet.

So final build is as follows:

Primary Skills: One handed, Conjuration
Secondary: Alchemy, Speach, Smithing

I'll post some pictures up shortly, the quality wont be great since I'm using a PS3, so no hi-res screenie I'm afraid

I Like your thinking, its a bit like my 2nd char only did not intend to stick to a pure path, as my 1st char compleated quest at lvl 40 started as a pure mage, but liked the bow, and so my perks were all over the place. But my new char is a warrior Nord, Sigle handed, archery, Resoration, as I needed some help with health as i decided not to do alchemy this time round. with perks in BLOCK,Light armour, smithing, And its such Fun, in No rush to stay with. Main quest. Things I never done 1st time round stuff like the Civil war is like a new game. And what about the Killing Dragons cut scean..!OmG! as a Mage killed over 25+ dragons. BUT None like my Very 1st Kill as a warrior. He actually grabbed the dragon by the Horn and swung up onto his Neck as if to ride him..THEN grabed a one-handed axe with 2 hands above his head and killed him with finale BLOW..how cool was that..made me look right HARD...lol good luck with your build look forword to your progress..

Don't forget to invent an obscure god to worship, like MK's :

" A Yoku god
N'awyadin-It - Yokudan God of Expression Alarm. Revered in word frequently among the funnier-masked castes. "

Dafter the better, with their pantheon, God of the Smell of Breakfast or something.

<sup>Bound Sword is a novice level Conjuration spell. Casting the spell will contribute to your Conjuration leveling (levels quicker if you're in combat). Hitting someone with the Bound Sword will level up your One-handed skill. The Mystic perk puts it on the same damage threshold as a Daedric sword, so it's definitely got some bite. All in all, you won't need to focus much on Conjuration as it's a low level spell.

I've always pictured the Shehai as more of a secondary weapon (much more powerful than any mundane weapon, but rarely used unless extremely needed). I could see your hero waltzing around Skyrim with a trusty enchanted blade and using his "Shehai" here and there for a more satisfying kill.</sup>

So you just used my ghostblade + smithing idea and didn't even credit me? And a sword singer is a master swordsman; you should absolutely take block. Also, taking conjuration as a filler until you get the ghostblade seems silly. Why must your character be a sword singer at the start of the game? It would make more sense (and open up a great RP opportunity) that he becomes a sword singer later, as he improves his swordsmanship.

edit: nevermind.

im actually doing this build!

I meant that I'd simply use conjuration until i can comparre it to the ghost blade -- I ended up using conjuration throughout however, I dont like the ghost blade it looks to Nordic in design while the Conjured blade looks much more like a scimitar -- I've always imagined shehai looking like scimitars/katanas. And sorry I didnt credit
I decided to go with Sep, the Yokudan version of Lorkhan/Shor -- seems to be a good fit with the nordic setting.

I would tend to agree with the Lore side of things, but with the Dragon souls (which he leaves unspent) being absorbed by him, he uses their power to enhance his singing abilities rather than shouting abilities, so he can sword sing alot more often and than usual.

Great stuff! You wont be disapointed.

So here's what i've done so far. Shaziir, a Redguard swordsmean of autumn years has found his way to Skyrim -- where he would test his abilities as a warrior against the elements, the beasts and the legends of the land. His abilities are tested and tempered in the cold of the mountains and the winds of the plains, though his biggest challenge so far is trying to star warm in his traditional garb. It didn't take long to discover the reason Sep had sent him to this land however, when the Jarl of whiterun sent him to aid in the fight against a dragon. Though he respected the abilities of the dragon tongue he saw little need to use it -- his only tool would forever and always be a blade, and he would only shout when circumstanecs demanded it.

One a none role play note:

This build has been fantastic to play -- I hit level 17 by the time I was giving the horn of that windcaller dude to the grey beards, even though the only other quest i'd done was the ghostblade quest. I've had to turn the difficulty up quite a bit throughout my game play. I've been using some shouts as "Singing abilities", such as whirlwind sprint, he leaps into battle using his speed to close on his enemies before they can react to him, and when the heat of battle is too much, the Redguard adrenaline seems to "Slow time" down around him. I thought i'd have to play on apprentice difficulty since the armour value is non-existant, but it hasnt been the case. I've had to play on expert throughout since he just cutes a bloodyswath through all he meets. So far I have trouble believing that any other build could be as enjoyable as i've found this one to be.

Thanks for all the input also -- it's made it alot easier to figure out how to play this character. I have neglected blocking for the most part, I tend not to use a shield as much, I prefer to use a torch in battle and im not sure that the blocking perks effect the effectiveness of using a depleted staff or torch instead of a shield.

I'll have pictures incoming, I figured out how to get screenshots on the PS3, i just have to figure out where I saved the files to.

As promised heres some pictures


http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z10/leecarey_2007/ICON0-1.jpg

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z10/leecarey_2007/ICON0.jpg


Please excuse the quality, I use a very expensive photo resizer i got from work as a plug in for photoshop, but even that struggles at keeping the quality in from resizing the picture from a 300pixel wide icon. I managed to keep most of the detail but it still looks a little strange.

This is a fantastic build, in concept and (I'm glad to hear) in execution. Although I can't imagine how you're managing without *any* armor... I've only played on Adept so far and have felt no desire to make things harder!

The armour is only an issue with mages, but I plan on eventually getting some resist ring/amulet/shoes/gloves. Melee and the like rarely stand a chance though, I even cut down a giant after 3 power attacks. His mate decided i'd look better in the sky though, unfortunately -.-