I am level 1. If I were to level up right now, I would be at level 25. Unfortunately, I cannot level up to level 2, stop, then level up again when I am ready (which one of my only few beefs with this game).

I have no idea how I should allocate my points.

I know what most would say "If you want to be a caster, pump magicka. If you want to carry allot of weight and use mellee, pump stamina and health, etc.

It is more complicated than that.

Anyone remember the spell, "Fingers of the Mountain" in Oblivion? That spell was leveled to your character upon whenever you decided to take the quest.

If you were say, level 30 when you took the quest and picked up the spell, it required like 250 magicka to cast it. Once.

So in the long run, as huge as this game is, what is a suggested balance for points? I am a balanced character. I do not specialize in any particular skill. I enjoy casting, offensively, and defensively, archery, stealth, I love everything.

So how should I build these stats?

One of each per level. Level one is health, two is stamina, three is magic, fourth is health, ad infinitum.

Modify based on your playstyle; do you prefer to stay at range or get close up? If so, you may want to substitute Magic for health or stamina if you tend to fight things at range, or focus more on health if you prefer melee.

Remember, by generalizing/balancing, you have flexibilty, but you can't do perform to the level of a specialist. Something like fingers of the Mountain will always be beyond your grasp if you can't boost your magic pool by potions or enchantments.

What?

It`s not complex at all. If you want some humongius spell, put up your Magicka humongously. If you can`t have it for some weird reason then don`t,. just put equal amounts in everything else.

If you can`t decide, do nothing until you can. Point is, how do we know what`s best for you when you don`t seem to know?

I think you`re problem is, you don`t really have any idea what you want to be or what you are in the game. You need a class for direction, I think. You need to decide on what you want your character to be and build on those strengths; it`s the first rule of any RPG.

I just find it strange how a person needs help in something this simple.

I prefer to spend my points on Stamina, I find that the normal running speed is a little too slow, and so prefer to sprint everywhere. For which I need a lot of stamina.

That said, I rarely ever use spells, so Magicka is pointless, and Health doesn't matter much either considering how easy the game is, especially when, as a stealthy character I rarely get hit anyway.

Just allocate them as you see fit. It has very few consequences as far as gameplay goes.

Really?

TO use top level spells you either need to invest in magicacost reduction enchantments or invest skill and perks, preferably both. Using magic effectively all around is a specialization not suited for a jack of all trades.

Um, how are we supposed to tell you how to play your game? There is no "formula" if that's what you're asking. I like to spread them out evenly , but as soon as you get to level 45-50 and have a set of dragon bone or daedric armor you wont really care anyways. I like to be able to run a lot and carry stuff as well as have a decent amount of magic, but again once you have enough perks in the right spot you're pretty much invincible .

If you are going to be using spells or conjures then pick magic. If your going to be using a hand held weapon pick stamina. If your going to be rubbish at playing the game and getting beat in fights pick health. If your going to use spells, weapons and be rubbish with both of them then pick all three.

If you spread them all out as evenly as possible among magicka, health and stamina, you'd have two at 180 and one at 190. My first character is also a "balanced" one - she has a bit more magicka than she does the other two, but they're all fairly close to each other; Magicka is near 300 IIRC, the others in the low-to-mid 200's (she's Level 44). That's less any boosts given by enchanted apparel, blessings, etc.

What kind of gear (enchanted and otherwise), blessings and so forth do you favor? If you use something like the Archmage's Robes (+100 magicka) you might want to consider putting fewer points in magicka and spend them on health and stamina. Are you an OCD-type looter who doesn't want to bother with followers? If so you'd probably want to pump stamina for the extra carrying capacity. Are you planning to grind smithing/enchanting/alchemy and create armor with lots of damage resistance? Then it's probably not too important to put a bunch of points into health.

And so forth and so on. By Level 25, you should have a pretty good idea of what your favored play style is for this character, and plan things out accordingly. I'd suggest making a hard save, then allocate the points/perks and try things out for a bit. If you don't like it, you can always revert back to the save and try something else.


ETA - by keeping your level so low for so long, you haven't allowed enemies in the game to level up as you've played. You've probably also missed out on a fair number of quests which aren't offered until you've reached a certain level. Be prepared for quite a shock when you assign those points.

Seems like one of the things that was "simplified" for the game (vs attribute selection in previous ES games).

It depends on the character.

With my mage I tend to focus on magicka and health, with a little more in magicka, little or nothing in stamina.
With my warrior I focus on health and stamina, little or nothing in magicka.

I having played a thief or assassin character yet, but I suspect that would be more balanced between all three.

But that is not necessarily what you should do. Because adding a bunch to health might be not necessary for some characters, particularly on Adept or lower difficulty.

But I don't think you should worry about the choice, I recommend just picking something you think will work. You can always start a new character if you don't like the way things are going.

No need for saucy lines.

I DO NOT KNOW if spells like Fingers of the Mountain exist in Skyrim.

I have never played through every quest.

If spells like this DO exist, then I would regret never having pumped magicka enough to even be able to cast it, once I obtain it.

This is ONE example. The same example applies to stamina and health.

I do not know, because I have never played through every quest,

If I am going to be destroyed by a certain dragon in a certain quest, UNLESS............... I make sure to have my health at "at least" ( insert number)

same with stamina, and so on. It is a general advice question.

No need to insult me and belittle me.

I find that if I'm playing as a mage, I can pretty much ignore Stamina. There are other ways to deal with Carryweight and a mage doesn't swing a blade or axe so that's why. I never get the green Stamina bar flashing. I choose almost entirely Magicka and then as the level gets higher, I'll choose Health and get the Mage Armor perk, three levels. There are many perks to help with Health. My current game is a Battlemage and I need more Stamina for swinging a weapon and bashing with a shield so I was choosing Stamina more at the beginning. Now I'm choosing more Magicka so I can use the higher level Destruction spells along with the more powerful conjured entities to fight and distract the enemies. Good luck!

Quit stressing about it. Even a random placement will make your character viable. Trying to turn Skyrim into a strategy game is going to be quite disappointing.

Magicka - All spells have a fixed base cost which is reduced by your skill in the magic school and the higher spells vastly exceed the base 100 magicka. With 100 enchanting, you can pick two schools to cast for free, making magicka unnecessary. However, if you want to be able to cast every spell in the game with a single character, you will either need several sets of enchanted gear to switch between, or massive amounts of magicka.

Health - At high difficulty levels, enemies can 1-2 shot you and traps can 1 shot you, so you will need some health. If you don't mind using potions in combat, I can't imagine you would need more than 200 - 250, if that. If you charge into battle with reckless abandon, however, never blocking or dodging, you might need significantly more.

Stamina - In combat it's useless. A little vegetable soup or potions give you infinite power attacks. Or you could just play hit and run and let it regen naturally. Since you only need 1 stamina for a power attack or bash, it's less important than magicka. On the other hand, stamina has out-of-combat benefits by providing more time for sprinting and a higher carrying capacity. If your battle strategy relies upon 0-cost spells from enchanting and avoiding getting hit, put lots into stamina.

This is all about meta-gaming, coming up with a build to face things your character wouldn't know they were to face. Don't worry about that, just play the game, and have some fun. Find out what you need as you go along. It will make things more interesting. There is no 'perfect' build, so trying to find one is a waste of time you could have spent crushing skulls, burning trolls' faces off, os sticking daggers into people's spines.

This is why we don't have Daggerfall's and Morrowind's anymore

Agreed why can't people think for themselves anymore... Stop relying on others to think for you.......

My character is an all-around character too. I tend to focus on increasing health. My health is about 80 points higher than my magicka and stamina. My magicka and stamina levels are about the same. Just try to alternate between any 2 or all 3 every time you level. I dont use magicka as much as weapons so I usually increase health and stamina. I have a high enough magicka along with a ton of magicka potions and robes that I can focus on leveling health the most and stamina second.

Thats how I am handling it, but it really depends on what you want and how you play. You could also think of it like this; if you die a lot or find yourself using healing potions all the time, level health. If you want to use more power attacks (or just run longer) then level stamina. If you use magic and feel like you need more magicka, level that. If its all three, then just alternate.

900 HP.

Enchant your gear to make spells cost less and stamina regenerate faster.

Seriously shut up. I am not trying to get anybody to think for me. I pay my mortgage on my house ALONE, I work a job, ALONE, I drive a car, ALONE, pay my bills, operate a smartphone alone. This is just something I asked for advice about. Stop being a dramatic prat, and get off my case. Jerk.

I tend to favor pumping health early in the game since almost anything can (and usually does) see me as a tasty little morsel. As advanced armor types become available, though, the damage reduction tends to help with the health issue and I can focus more on Stamina or Magicka. Since I haven't played a pure casting-class character, Stamina tends to get the benefit of that choice. But it's a character-by-character kind of decision. What's working well for my current character would have fried the one before last (the last one died at level 1) and what worked well for that character wouldn't work well for the current one.

Then if you do those things making your own advlt decisions, don`t you feel like a child that you can`t make your own basic decisions about a simple role playing game?

You need faceless forumers to do it for you?

I could never do this because my character is MY character, I let someone else make it for me and it no longer is MY character, but theirs.

Guess what? You`re not the only person who has to pay the household bills, car and even the smartphone. Alone.

Right?

Honestly never thought I'd see a question like this one, though.

I am being a dramatic prat?... Pot calling the kettle black...