Ok, yesterday I finally - FINALLY - finished the main quest. I bought the game the day it came out. Play it all the freakin time. I probably have... near 300 hours on it. I created 3 characters. The first one got to the point where all the lag just ruined it. So I restarted with two new characters. One, a simple warrior class. No magic, apart from Healing, I think. The second, a pure mage, specialized in Conjuration and Alteration.

Finally decided it was time to finish the main quest, so I did so last night with my mage character. I have to say, the place where you fight Alduin(no names for spoilers) is GORGEOUS. Holy [censored], I was just amazed at the beauty of it all. Truly awesome.

So after that was done, the other quests I hadn't completed just didn't seem worth the attention. With the major threat gone, it was just twaddle.

So I crafted myself another character, a nord. I think I named him Bormah ToorTun, which means Father Inferno-Hammer in the dragon language. I think that's what I named him, I amy be wrong. Anyway, I decided to play on Master difficulty. And I'm going to play this like a true RPG-player. No fast traveling, having a daily schedule, sleeping, working, eating - the whole RPG thing.

But once I really get out there with the whole questing thing, I will probably get my ass handed to me quite often. So I'd like some tips on staying alive. I hear Alchemy is useful, but I don't really know much about Alchemy. In the 3 characters I had, I probably got Alchemy a bit leveled up with one, but didn't do anything with it.

Don't get hit....ever

Oh this is easy, think before you do any combat or enter a possibly dangerous area.

Also avoid sweet roles. Were there are sweet roles, there are monsters.

Always have a follower... ALWAYS. Unlike you, they don't take more damage, or deal less, for being on different difficulties (making them trivial on Novice/Apprentice).

Alchemy: Blue Mountain Flowers + Wheat is your best friend. Both are extremely common and cheap and it both fortifies and restores HP (the fortify is also a "heal" in a way... raising max AND current HP.... so a 40pt fortify and 40pt heal will actually raise you 80pts... the best part is if youre only 40 pts under max... you get the full benefit still. Also the raised max can be healed to via resto spells)

I recommend Sword&Board combat... if your first warrior was a shield user, you may consider 2hand. Sneak Archers are powerful too, but there are some fights they'll have more trouble with (and you will NEED a tank follower)

Yep, fortify health is your friend. And resist fire/frost for dragons. Get as much armour rating as possible. Don't be afraid to run, outnumbered is bad, surrounded is loads worse. Food can be useful, vegetable stew, beef stew and Elsweyr fondue, anyway.

Just keep that in mind and you'll do fine.

no companions and no exploitation and no abuse:

slow down. when you exit from the intro cave, stop. do quests, advance combat.
smith what you feel is real roleplay-wise: for me, leather is basic: get intro basic leather.

nearby caves, creature and enemies for experience and levelups. travel back and forth from whitehelm.
make your circumference bigger and bigger, but, slowly.

chew to big, bye.

I heard about people, here, that play Skyrim, the way they would exist in Skyrim themselves. hardcoe role-playing, I guess. They awake around a certain time, breakfast, do some jobs, dinner, bed, repeat. And when they feel they are ready, then they venture forth into the world.

That's what I'm doing right now. I still have my Imperial warrior to use if my Master difficulty/role-playing Nord character bores me for a time.

Though breaking my fast travel habit is going to be difficult. There's that one quest during the main quest where you Dear.............god, I can't imagine how boring that must be without fast-travel.

What you do is is explore and do side quests between each errand

When you are not fast traveling, you tend to get distracted by all sorts of things so it is not really boring. But I still fast travel when I have some goal I want to get done quickly. Besides looking at all the stuff that has map icons, if you go into an area where there are no map icons, you are still bound to find something. Like a troll cave or a sacrificial altar with a note or a journal and things set up to tell a little story...

I only switched from Expert to Master after I was at mid level, so I don't really know how it goes when you start on Master. But I think you either have to create your build with lots of tactical options, or go for raw power using every trick. I think a pure warrior build would be difficult on Master.

If you are melee, learn to block and bash.
If you are ranged, learn to dodge and kite.
For both, learn how to use terrain and cover.

Make your character so he doesn't need to charge full-on into combat. Tanking on Master is just not possible. Even with awesome armor, two-handed weapons and an HP bar as long as the Trans-Canada Railway, a draugur scourge will easily pummel you into the ground without you even halving his HP. Try to jump into combat quickly, strike fast then run away and make them follow you. NOTE: if you're swarmed in a tight space, switch to Novice IMMEDIATELY! Also, watch out for archers as they are extremely deadly.

I just started my first character on Master (the others started at default), but because ive played through it before I know how the enemies behave but also I know where all the decent weapons/items are, so first thing I did was make a beeline for the bound bow which is a surprisingly powerful bow, though to get it early you do need a high elf otherwise you won't have enough magic to cast it.

I'm already upto level 20 after maybe 10-15hr on this character and I've found/bought three items that boost my archery damage plus I've got a few archery perks now so I'm doing 97 damage with bow, plus 24 for the arrows, times the 97 by three for sneak attacks and most enemies are relatively simple.

If your swarmed by enemies use unrelenting force to blast them back to open up a bit of room to breath. I don't agree with just lowering the difficulty when the going gets tough, it's not really playing on master if your going to do that. I would rather die and have the challenge of facing them again, it'll be much more satisfying for you if you beat them without taking the easy way out.

If you do struggle with a particular battle then just keep remembering to fall back to give yourself time to heal (fast healing and close wounds are much quicker/better than the default heal spell) and you'll pick up tons of potions which are emergency lifelines if you health is down to 5% and you won't have time to heal up before that 5% is wiped out.

How to survive Master difficulty:


1. Max out enchanting/smithing/alchemy.
2. Load up on resistance gear.
3. Dump all your perks in a few areas early on.
4. Claim the game is easy on Master as you play it like a sport.

My Number 1 Master Difficulty tip may sound wierd, but hear me out.

Don't power level a crafting skill. Since all skills bleed into your overall level, and level influences the difficulty curve of the game, spamming crafting skills will cause stronger enemies to appear before you have the abilities needed to defeat them outside of exploitation. Your gear's efficacy will make little difference without the skill and perks in your active combat abilities leveled sufficiently. I'd say level a crafting skill to match your second highest skill at any given time, unless you absolutely need to reach a perk (IE 30 for Elven which produces high-quality weapons very early).

Second tip, equip lots of Health+ equipment and get the blessing of Arkay from a shrine. I can't count the times a Bandit Marauder has beamed me over the head with his warhammer leaving me at 25 or lower health. Just make sure whenever you take a hit you think is strong, to open the character menu to check your health, since there's a delay between the in-game representation. It would be a problem if Bandits didn't love to insta-finisher you so often, before you even realize your HP is in danger.

Third and final Tip. Lesser Ward is a Dragonfighter's best friend. With a little practice, you can evade all damage from Dragons by combining lesser Ward, with evasive movement. As long as you have enough HP to avoid an instant kill, specifically the Dragon bodychomp finisher, you should be able to ward off all Dragon Breath and dodge any attacks from the Dragon's head. The Dragon's wings are much faster and much less predictable, and the tail delivers a large area-of-effect type attack, so it's hard to get out of range.

I was just kidding man.

you mad brah? you sound mad brah.

Be cool.

While I was playing on Master, I learned three things that I needed to do differently than on other difficulties:

1. Buy healing potions every time you are at a store that has them. You can never have to much healing potions and it also helps to boost their available gold to sell your loot.
2. Learn to kite. Several enemies can be strung along for great distances, others simply turn around if you get to far. Get them away from their friends.
3. Make use of traps. Pay attention to your surroundings, always keep the exit at your back and lure enemies into the many traps to get an edge.

That's pretty much it. You may have to pick perks that are relevant to your "class" instead of the random beneficial ones you always seem to want to give yourself a better chance. Save often, you never know when someone will launch a finishing move, I've had it happen when I was at full health.

If I'm repeating anyone, sorry. As a melee class, you're going to have a really tough time pre-25ish on Master. If you're dead set on melee, I'd strongly advise sword 'n board, and get the block perk to slow time asap. Inturrupting every enemy's power attack is vital, as most will 1-shot you earlier in the game.

Even though you don't want to be an archer, it'd be a good idea to be at least a little proficient with a bow for 2 reasons:

1: to soften up a target before they get to you
2: to make impossible fights possible by line-of-sighting tough ranged enemies (dragons, dragon priests, etc) behind a tree, rock, etc. The idea is to pop out, fire an arrow, and duck back behind cover before they blast you. These types of fights take a while, but they're intense.

And grab a follower if you want to make things easy

Conjurer is the easiest on Expert and Master. If you have your guy dabble in it and get some Fortify Conjuration gear to lower the cost of the summons, you should have no problems with most parts.

Or ignore all that and take one perk which will completely break the game impact

criminalscum-

nah, your tip is dead-on. leveling skills that don't help you defensively is a good way to get yourself killed often on master.

Well I just finished the game as a Conjuration mage. My opinion, it was too easy. I could have switched to Destruction, I suppose, but those spells seemed pretty weak against the powerful monsters I had to fight later on. Maxing out Conjuration, I was able to summon two Dremora Lords that easily killed everything in their path. If they died, big deal, I just summoned more. I was dumping all points into Magic, not Health or Stamina, so I had plenty to spare - as well as Master Robes that allowed for 150% magic regeneration.

All in all, after all I had done as a mage, I think it was pretty boring.

So my Master difficulty guy isn't going to use a lot of magic. I won't exclude magic on the whole, but I'd prefer not to use it enough that it becomes part of my playstyle.

As of now, I'm role-playing. I didn't really role-play with my last few characters. They had backstories, but that was about it. But THIS guy, he's got a backstory and is doing things that I find believable. I've gone through, at least 4 or 5 in-game days in Skyrim, and I haven't ventured out of the Riverwood area once. My guy wakes up, has breakfast, goes to work at the mill, takes a lunch break for crafting, goes back to work, goes home, dinner, sleep. I'm doing it realistically. My guy worked at the mill until he had enough gold saved to buy a hunting bow and a few(not ALL available) steel arrows. My guy is trying to save money for his trip into the world(lol). So now, he wakes up early, goes hunting until 8am, then does his regular routine. I got enough hides to craft leather armor, and I'm thinking he'll take a trip up towards Bleak Falls Barrow pretty soon.

As I said, I'm role-playing the [censored] out of this guy, so I'm pretty happy with taking my sweet time.