Hey,

I'm pretty much a gaming noob. I got a PS3 for Christmas and everyone was raving about Skyrim so I took a punt.

First let me say I love the game. I struggle a bit because some parts regular gamers just know. For instance I only just learnt you could run. Noob.

So, I've got into the dig site then into the tomb now I've saved in the large room with the little bridge. I killed all the dudes then wandered on to find the dagger. I've got the what I assume is the final dude. Draugr wight I think his name is.
Now I'm only on level 5, just. The guy hits me twice and I'm dead from full health.

I understand I'm a lowly level 5 so I can't kill him. Ive tried. But I also can't get out.
If I go back I get to the circular room with the little bridge and the way is barred with a gate.

Help, at the moment I can't go anywhere. I can't go on or back. I can't fast travel from within the dungeon so the game is over for me.

Any help would be good.

Thanks in advance folks

Have you tried lowering the difficulty? That might help you beat the enemy and continue on.

other than loading an earlier save, there isnt much you can do, unless you lower the difficulty, and take him out.

Lower the difficulty as mentioned, also try and keep your distance from him and use your flame spell Draugr are weak to fire damage so that will help. Hit and run tactics keeping objects between you and him as much as possible so you can heal back up.

Dont feel bad about going through all your expendables (potions, food, scrolls, poisions). They can give you that edge, or allow you to just absorb the punishment that you need to stay alive.

You only need a spec of stamina to power attack back. If you fill your stamina bar, you may only get 1-2 power attacks, but each stamina potion = a power attack if you swap in and out.

Just try another approach or set the difficulty meter down..

Hey, thanks for that.

I have full stamina and health as he attacks. Not great at fighting.

How would I lower the difficulty? I'm on PS3.

You should hit the start button(or whatever ps3 button goes to the save menu) and go to settings tab and down to gameplay. You should see the option in there.
Not sure if that's entirely accurate, I play on PC with an XBOX controller. =3

Just for future reference, make saves up to the point where you have about a hundred of them. That way you can always go back a ways.

As for this battle, do you have any ranged attacks at all? If you have some way to attack at range, like bows or spells, and enough arrows or potions, generally you can run around like a madman and wear the guy down. Dodge behind pillars, run up on ledges, just do anything where your human intelligence beats his PS3 intelligence.

If the only way you have built your character is to go up to the guy and hit him with a sword, and you can't get out, take it as a learning experience. Level 5 is about five hours of gameplay, probably. At the end of this game you probably will have put in at least 100 hours. Don't be too bummed if you just have to go back and create a new guy from scratch. Just give him more options, and spend some time outside Whiterun killing Saber Cats and Mudcrabs until you are happy with your combat skills.

You should have a flame spell at least. Make sure you're wearing your robe and hood that give you extra magicka and cheaper destruction costs. Have you found a potion yet that gives you +20-30 magicka or health for x amount of time? Take that. Turn down the difficulty slider to Apprentice.

I can't believe I killed him on the first try, but what I think I did was run around frantically for a few seconds looking for some place to get my back up against while the old man distracted him, dodged his shots for a few more seconds, then launched Sparks and Firebolt at him non stop. Amazingly he stood still and took my damage. I may have had the slider at Apprentice but I don't think so. That is my last resort and this was my first try. I'm level 8.

Good luck.

Dont be afraid to run around like a fairy. If you can get one good shot in and then leg it before he can hit you, that's a start. Toldfir *should* be around to throw the occaisional spell at the enemy. Also remember Toldfir cant die so dont feel bad about using him as a meatshield.
And dont forget the power of your dragon breath!! A good shout will make your opponent stumble, giving you the chance to get in there and do a litle damage before you run off again. Have you got the amulet that makes means you can shout again faster?

At this point in the game, as someone above said, dont feel too bad if you have to go back and loose a couple of hours of gameplay. Strike it up to experience, and then next time round, make sure you only go into a dungeon with adequate potions and foods and a couple of backup weapons.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to have another bash after work.

Fingers crossed.

I may run away and come back later.

Get a shield, held in one hand -- when the Draugs come out you, raise it for defence , it will give you vital time to survive. Push him back, try and corner him, watch your health bar. Cast a spell with your other hand if you can. Duck and weave, duck and weave. Good Luck

No, really dont do that. Really.
Having a large number of saves may cause issues with the game. Savegame bloating, savegame corruption, framerate loss, increased loading times.

For optimal performance this works best:
-Disable all autosaves. They are a major contributor to savegame bloating and increase loading times.
Save manually, regularly, and in different slots.
-Do not overwrite saves. Delete your oldest save as you make a new one in a new slot. Again, to prevent savegame bloating.
-Keep a relatively low number of saves. Anything from 5- 20 should be fine.

Some people have reported issues when installing the game to hard disk. I have not encountered these issues, so it may not be something that happens 100% of the time. In any case, installing to harddisk or USB reduces stress on your hardware, ps3 in this case I think, and increases its longevity.

In any case, good luck on gettign out of Sarthaal. You could maybe also try sneaking past him to the exit?
I cant remember if its locked until you defeat him.

First numbers of saves does not cause savegame bloat and should not use memory unless the system tries to keep track of them while playing as in keeping the file list in memory.
Overwriting delete the old file and write an new one, it does not merge files.

Some theories that auto saves cause save bloats, this is possible but only if you reload an auto save and only auto saves just after entering an zone, auto save then entering menu every 5 minute or similar is just as standard saves.

A lot of people on the hardware and software issues forum have reported problems that turned out to be related to keeping too many saves, so it is a factor.

Deleting instead of overwriting may help prevent issues and increase performance. It is certainly possible that issues arise from overwriting.

Autosaves are the major contributor to savegame bloating and they increase loading times significantly.

Im not making this up you know, I have followed the hardware and software issues forum.
The method I outlined in my previous post ensures you have the least chance of developing issues.

I'm pretty sure that you can open the gate in the circular room. Look at the wall that leads to the boss, there should be a lever or something. It will close the gate that leads to the boss and open the other one, which leads back into the excavation site.

You are pretty brave to go into Saarthal at lvl 5 hahahahaha How the heck did you make it from Helgen to Winterhold? And how come you didn't level more along the way? =p
When I make it out of Helgen, I hit the Guardian Stones outside Riverwood, then I kill some bandits in the mine on the way to Riverwood. Once there, I restock, make me some better armor and weapon. Then I hit the world.

Some people are blessed with sheer dumb luck it seems! Especially if they can run, like really really fast.
Did you ever watch zero punctuation where the guy played Fallout New Vegas and ran straight from goodsprings to new vegas.. in one piece, ish?
Sheer dumb luck!

The gods watch over this one.

If you have the shout unrelenting force then you're good..even with only the first word, "Fus", you can push him a little and then hit him a few times
Also, isn't Tolfdir with you?

There are a million ways to help you win a single battle, many of which work best with certain kinds of characters. I often moved the difficulty down and then up after the battle. Scarfing lots of potions can help. Firing off a "familiar" spell can give the bad guy something else to concentrate on. Fire off a familiar (spell or staff) and then hit him with a bow or spell at a distance. When the old familiar gets killed off, fire off another one and so on.

Find a spot where the bad guy can't reach you, like on top of a rock or bit of wreckage and fire at him with a bow or spell till he dies.

Find a spot where he has to run a long way to get to you and then fire off a bow or spell till he gets close and then jump over some obstruction so he has to go the long way around to get to you again.

Bring a LOT LOT LOT of healing potions and keep freezing the action and filling your health up after every hit.

I fixed this in the long run by learning to smith and coming at these creatures with better armor so they couldn't one hit me.

In Sarthal I think there's a pretty good staff on the table you can grab and use.

If you have a companion, he or she can distract the boss while you hit them from behind.

Good luck.

lowering the difficulity as suggested should make the fight more fair.

there are some great tips offered about how to fight him.

don't forget to use your shout. it will slow if not stagger him.

that last enemy is tough, you need to turn your difficulty down like everyone says and get a follower, thats gonna help you a lot in this game, espeiclaly since you're not up to speed on the combat part, it can be hard until you have some decent firepower and tactics, the game has a lot going on, improving weapons and firepower is important, oh and your defense, if you go to dawnstar, now this is a bit tricky but at low levels pretty doable, near dawnstar is the lordstone, if you activate it, it will give you 50 bonus to armor rating and 25% magic resistance and that is pretty significant early in the game especially, its way better than picking one of those stones at the beginning of the game, i take carriage to dawnstar at the beginning and activate the lord stone early in the game.

Actually I tried this out, as my game was getting pretty laggy and slow. I had about 61 savegames, and deleted them down to having 20, and my game does seem alot faster without being so laggy now. So, maybe it's a case of that you're BOTH right, and this can be a good idea for certain people who have laggy games?

level 6 imperial mage (created for this experiment)
*medium difficulty*
novice hood
cloth boots
novice destruction robes
ring of +20 health (one of the three enchanted rings the instructor asks you to gather)
amulet of julianos (chance loot from a draugr in the dungeon)
spells = flames, frostbite, conjure flame atronoch and conjured sword
perks = novice level destruction, novice level conjuring and novice level alteration all at reduced cost - 3 unspent perks

lure the draugr up onto the upper level and keep him going back and forth to the stairs by going up one side, staying under the middle and then up the other side - use frostbite and keep conjured sword up in case he gets too close and keep running until Tolfdir says he's got it and to attack the draugr now.

summon flame atronoch, switch spells to flames and attack the draugr

done bun and no armor, no follower and no dieing.

like I said, I think we get frustrated and it changes how well we can play. as soon as we believe a thing is impossible we make more mistakes than we can even remember good moves in any situation.

good luck, I hope you found a way through it.

mages are squishy, especially if you put them in mages gear. mine usually level enough enchanting to get a good magicka or mage based enchant on heavy gauntlets and boots and then wear the cloth hood and robes. for this one she didn't get anything the school didn't give her or that she didn't pick up along the way.

now the question is what happens to my little level 6 mage? I hate parking them or deleting them... I suppose I can see how far I can get in all cloth... but wow... no potions left after just one little dungeon.