Again this guy knows his s*** what he said

Look, I concentrated on single-handed, smithing, heavy armor and shield, with a little effort invested in archery and sneak, and I think one perk in Restoration. I maxed out the four main skills, I think, somewhere around the high forties in character level, with two thirds of my levels going into endurance and the rest into health.

And while I was a serious ass-kicker by that point, I wasn't invincible. I couldn't just stand there and take hit after hit like I was from Krypton or something. I could take on giants and dragons and mages and bandit gangs and win, but I couldn't just go running around willy-nilly. The challenge still remained in the game - even on Adept skill level. I distinctly remember one fight against three or four mages that was a real corker even with my degree of power.

Do you play on Expert or Master? And when you fight, say a bandit, or some other low-level humanoid are you able to kill it with relatively few hits? That's all I'm really looking for. I'm not asking to kill everything with one or two hits.

That's good to hear. Is that what you play on? Adept?

Give me two mins.

Mate with ease on expert. Just mauled the hell out this bandit.

WHAT THE HELL! For some reason my werewolf has a sword equiped.

Hahaha. I had this happen the other day, too. And I think the game took into account the damage done by the weapon (which was an iron sword). Needless to say I wasn't dealing much damage.

Thanks for the input and answers. I may have to give Expert or Master a go. I'm just looking for a challenge (which is why I was not taking certain perks) while not feeling like the game was cheap.

Yeah, I stuck with Adept through that whole character. Now, remember that while I did use smithing (skill level 100) to get my steel armor up to legendary, I didn't do the whole smithing-enchanting-alchemy loop that some have used. If that significantly boosts your armor rating then perhaps you'd have to try a harder skill level or just avoid that loop completely to retain a challenge, but smithing and heavy armor alone didn't make me invincible, even with both skills maxed.

Well, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I want to do smithing and create legendary armor and weapons, but I by no means am going to do the smithing-enchanting-alchemy loop that some people have done. That's just no fun to me. I do use alchemy (for poisons only) but I do not enchant items, typically, except for soul trap.

Yep and that loop is the only way to better you equipment without it been a form of cheating

Basically you will hit max on your equipment and if you want to further it then use the loop

No. Armor stops adding protection at 5... 564 armor rating or somewhere around there. It similar to the way you can only have 80% elemental resistance. So having a nord with enchanted armor resist frost 50% will only actually have 80%.

you can't be invincible without using mods or console commands ono pc.

Well, I didn't literally mean invincible.

has anyone managed to get mehrunes razor past 106 damage. I think thats the cap.

No, smithing and defence perks do NOT make you invincible. I play on Adept, and even with legendary armor and 5/5 in light armor or heavy armor defence perks, I still die fairly quick. Doesn't matter if my armor is Blades, Glass or Dragonbone. Maybe because I don't abuse any exploits? Smithing, enchanting and alchemy aren't broken.

Again, this what exactly what I was asking. Basically, will I still run the risk of getting killed by enemies if I a) play on Adept, b ) take all the armor perks, and c) smith legendary armor. If the answer is yes, then that's the level I'm sticking with.

The max armor rating at which point it stops adding protection, is 80%. It will block 80% damage. That's as high as it goes.

Interesting. I never knew that. How can you tell what percentage your armor is blocking damage? For example, right now (level 17 character) I have steel plate armor that does has an armor rating of 44. What percentage of damage does it block? How can I tell?

I understand where you're coming from Gagnon39. I intentionally left my Enchanting/Alchemy Skills low so that my enchantments to my armor (Daedric) wouldn't be too powerful. I play on Expert and only high-end bosses (Ancient Dragon, Dragon Priest, etc.) really give me a run for my money, whereas trash mobs warrant a decent challenge from time to time. It just depends on the scenario. If a dungeon seems too easy, I'll bump it to Master and finish it on that setting. Just be flexible and you can adjust the difficulty of the game to your personal, precise liking. Have fun with the DLC!

It still leaves you pretty vulnerable to magics, while your offensive ability lags too. You could invest your skill points in a weapon skill, heavy armor, and enchantment for a pretty powerful character, but you'll still never be immortal.

Smithing alone will not make you over powered. You only become over powered if you use multiple crafting skills, especially enchanting.

Yep. If you use all perks and skills to make your character tough. Then why shouldn't your character be nearly invincible.

It seems to be the way it should be.

And it is up to you.

I've been messing around playing on Expert and I like it alright. However, the more I think about it, one of my main concerns involves lycanthropy. I'm worried that playing on anything above Adept would make turning into a werewolf practically pointless. I guess I could do what I suggested in another thread, and just change the difficulty level every time I went to change into a werewolf but that sounds a little tedious and kind of breaks the immersion. I think I'll stick with Adept until that time at the game just becomes too ridiculously easy.