To be honest I hate the whole concept of self gimping (awful term too). But I have one guy with an overpowered warhammer, another with invincible dual Dremoras and another has 100% spell reduction for Conjuration and Destruction.

I thought I would try something different so I've started a new character the other week, I'd always wanted to play a Necromancer as I've never raised dead on any prior characters and lets face it the ritual stone is awesome fun!.

I've now been playing a good amount of time and just today got the Archmage robes, which finishes off how I've decided to attempt to balance the difficulty somewhat, I want to feel powerful, like a freaking Dovakiin but I don't want to be an immortal Daedra who can't even die!.

So I have put every single point into magic meaning I have nearly 900, health, stam 100, armor rating is at 200 when I have Stoneflesh cast, can't get ebonyflesh yet.

Mourners Bandana - +69 magic, Conjuration 22% less to cast
Archmage Robes - +50 magic, 15% less spell cost, 100% faster regen
Thalmor Gloves - +69 magic, +40% sneak (not that I sneak just nothing to put here)
Thalmor Boots - Resist Fire, Resist Frost 52%
Ring - +69 magic, Destruction 22% less
Necklace - +69 magic, Resist Magic 22% (I think).

I have perk points in every school of magic, but no other skills, illusion only four perks upto the quiet casting one. It's been working ok so far, my vast reserves of magic are getting me by, I certainly don't feel invincible as 100 health disappears very quickly, I often need to keep Fast Heal in hand and heal as my health is depleting if it's a big attack I'm taking. But if my Stoneflesh runs out at the wrong time in a crowd then I'm toast and even with my flesh spell active the first Deathlord I ran into one shotted me with an arrow, did it twice in a row in fact.

My main problem is the general crapness of Ice spells, the most powerful one I can seem to buy at my Destruction level is that Ice Spike (or is it spear) thing which does 37 damage with two perk put in Destruction Frost. But the thing does nothing against Nords and barely scratches a Deathlord, it's a good job that it is fairly effective at slowing them down as it takes literally fifty or sixty shots (plus those I miss) to put down some foes. As an aside have you seen Dragons flying after being Ice Spiked?, it's really funny watching them fly in super slo-mo.

Anyway it was really boring to me having to just stand in place (or backup slowly) firing ice spike after ice spike so I called it quits on being a true Necromancer. In general it seems the fire spells are much more effective, especially Fireball so I've turned him into a Pyromancer (yeah I dunno if there is such a thing) and its working without a hitch so far in terms of destruction anyway.

I did have an annoying issue so for a good few hours earlier today, all of a sudden my raised zombies were becoming too much like the dead creatures they are, they would just stand in place, or just run on the spot leaving me to deal with enemies. Foes would beat up on them and the raised guys wouldn't even fight back, so I looked in effects, I removed all my enchanting stuff and they were still broke, then I thought hang on they have my ice spike through them from when they died is that slowing them down so much they can't even move. Which is one of the reasons I switched over to fire.

It didn't improve matters, for the next few hours they now refused to raise at all, I couldn't even raise a stupid Elk, even the ritual stone wouldn't raise that darn Elk, or the dead Bandits next to him. It's fixed itself now but I don't know if this is a common glitch but it turned me into a conjurer of atronachs while it was happening.

Anyway let me know how you okay your master character(s) and if you have any improvement you could make to my pyro-necro-manner magey guy.

Well I don't play on master but here's a tip; destruction becomes utterly useless by adept. Stick to conjuration, illusion, alteration and optionally restoration.

I say this here as well. Potions that fortify destruction will increase the damage of your destruction spells. Potions that fortify conjuration will increase the duration of conjuration spells.

Like smithing is essential for fighters should alchemy be taken as essential for mages.

At 100 alchemy with enchanted alchemy gear and bonus perks can one create potions that will nearly triple the damage of destruction spells, iirc. Conjuration spells should last up to three times longer. It is been a while since I looked at these potions, because I am playing a fighter for now.

I never thought about potions for Destruction I'll have to have a fiddle about when I level alchemy some more, its only at 30 with no perks, I made an Enchanting potion at 5%, if you had Alchemy 100 and all the perks I wonder what % it would be, higher than the 25% ones Arcadia sells?.

I have checked it for you:

At 100 Alchemy with extra perks and with 4 x 28% Fortify Alchemy items can I create Destruction and Conjuration potions of +159% and that will last for 60s.

The 28% Fortify Alchemy items, which is slight above the standard 25% peerless items that can be bought at shops or found in loot, were created using Enchanting potions with a 32% bonus.

A boost of +159% means that for example a spell that does 50 damage will then do 129 damage, and an Atronach will stay for 155s.

I don't balance my gameplay, the game is supposed to do that for me.

There are some character-types that can roll through master like butter, like maxing smithing + enchanting + whatever to that mix.

Going for zero mana cost is cheating in my book.

I'm starting a new character tonight, it's going to be pretty challenging, so I'm playing on Adept. Basically:

Khajit mage with only 100 health, Skills are Destruction, Sneak, and Alteration. No smithing, no enchanting, no armor - just robes and rags and a dagger.

I play master.

I simple stick to the basic rules of my character.

He won`t make enchanted weapons although he`ll use them.
He won`t use sould gems, though he will sell them.
He won`t use magic staffs, but his Follower can.
He`ll use prepared potions and some spell scrolls, but mostly his Follower had them.

He`ll stick to his two handed sword and sword and shield mostly, but sometimes use any found axes if in trouble.

He has no qualms in maxxing out his two-handed sword and heavr armour because he needs all it`s power he can get under these rules.

I don`t see it as self-gimping (indeed horrible term), I see it simply as roleplaying my character.

I like the fact that there are powerful options. It just doesn't mean you have to have all the powerful options. I certainly wouldn't want a wet noodle weapon when that is my focus.

If the game provides all powerful options it should also be balanced to those all powerful options. If a player can obtain, and use, all of those all powerful options at the same time, the game should be balanced for that as well.

Eh, noone is forcing you to play a certain way. I'm not calling you a power-gamer, but this is why power-gamers complain so much about RPG's. Every game has exploits, good RPG's give you the option of specializing, and logically if you specialize in a way that makes you obsenely powerful, don't blame the options for that.

There will always be a way to meta-game a way a game to a breaking point.

Balance is nice but it is also overrated. Too many blame a game's balance for their mistakes. You can see this for almost any game.

I find the OP's attitude rather refreshing as he sees it as his job to create a balance and does not point at the game to fix his issues. You might want to discuss game balance issues in another thread as it only derails this one.

I'm not blaming the options at all.

I'm blaming the game for not incorporating things that can still give you a challenge when those options are taken.

Ever obtain a nice amount of magical items in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign? Y'know how a good, and challenging, DM would make the game interesting, worth playing, and one you couldn't breeze through?

They could do something like... lead you into a liar that is built upon a Null-Magic Zone, making all your special items no longer special. It wouldn't be impossible to win, but it wouldn't be cake either.

Skyrim, however, is cake.


If balance is "overrated" then we might as well just be watching movies instead of playing video games, because balance in the game is what makes it more fun on a level deeper than simple "instant gratification."

I disagree with the OP, it's not our job as the player to balance the game.

I cannot say that I have issues. It must svck when one cannot have fun with a game and fails to cope with the differences.

So... a personal attack is your argument?

Fair enough as it's not surprising.

But when did "fun" and "challenge" become inverted from one another, opposite sides of the spectrum if you will?

Ghouls n' Ghosts is one of the hardest games I've ever played. Loved every damn minute of it.

Ninja Gaiden, hard as nails, as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Cutting through enemies in Skyrim? Sure, it's fun. But it's insanely easy to do.

Why are you against having both?

At what level are you guys finding the game too easy? I just started a master playthrough and at lvl 8(destruction mage) I get one hit by a lot of enemies and find myself using the environment to put space between myself and enemies while I slowly drain their health.

Level 25-30+ is easy mode.

If your on PC there are mods for every issue mentioned above.

I use PISE (to make enemies harder) and Deadly Dragons.

Ugh, I cleaned out posts, but this thread is gone down. OP, sorry. If you would like to start a clean thread, that would be okay. Darkside Eric and sdack, take your conversation to PMs and stay out of the thread.

And please note - we warn for flinging accusations of trolling, just as we warn for trolling in general. Remember, sometimes it's fine to state your opinion once, not over and over in thread after thread.