A bit about me: I like roleplaying. I like archery. I like challenge. That precludes taking sneak, smithing or enchanting. I also don't want to melee. Ever. The guy in my sig obeys these restrictions, and he was really really fun. Until I took the Ranger perk, which trivialized kiting.

So now I want to create a new character, with archery and alchemy, and I will avoid the Ranger perk as well as magic. Problem is, what other skills do I choose? I need to level more stuff otherwise I'll shoot up in combat power relative to my level, then stagnate before I reach level 30. But without melee or magic, that leaves speech (which I can't level any faster), block (useless), light-armor (won't be getting hit much so this will level really slowly), lockpicking (also can't level any faster) and pickpocket. I'd happily take up pickpocketing, but how can I roleplay a thief that doesn't sneak, or a bard that doesn't use magic?

Suddenly, this leveling system doesn't seem so good . Looks like I have no choice but take up some magic.

Damn, this got close to page 3 with 0 (zero) views .

Sounds like you want to be a Nord already, thanking the 9, so that's a start.

I'm sure Imperials secretly worship Talos despite the White-Gold Concordat .

The EIGHT!!

-Thalmor agent

THE NINE!
- Imperial Legate secretly worshipping Talos.

If you are playing a pure archer (i.e no other weapons except bow) block is anything but useless. Shield wall and the bash line work quite well with a bow block and are useful for stunning a charging opponent so you can back away for a shot.

The MANY!
- Daedra worshipper

You mean Shield Wall affects bow block damage? Well, 140% of crap is still crap . And I know the bash line doesn't work with bow block because I tested it with the console. Sadly .

If you're on the PC and you were enjoying your sig character before the Ranger perk why not just use player.removeperk?

I've leveled quite a bit since then. Stopped putting points into stamina because I no longer needed to sprint, and some other changes. He's close to finishing the main quest though so I'm not too bothered.

Gotcha

I've found that it's really easy to make this game "too easy" for the vanilla difficulty levels. It seems to happen to any character once you've invested a decent number of perks. I'm searching for a balance/difficulty mod that suits me, maybe you'd have more fun if you found one that tweaked things to your liking.

Hmm, I could level sneak but not perk it or fire sneak shots. That should help keep things more balanced. Plus it's always useful to sneak even if you don't use sneak shots. Not a perfect solution, but it's something.

In hand to hand combat, an archer is a man with a stick.

You could go with heavy armor and get the gauntlet fistfighting perk...