So I'm playing a self-gimped archer (see sig) on master difficulty. He's level 14, his long bow and hide armor are upgraded to superior, and he uses iron arrows. In a small fort west of Solitude, he met his greatest match yet. The fort inside had but two rooms, connected by stairs. An orc bandit wielding a steel great sword was standing right in front of the entrance with his back to me, warming up in front of a fireplace. I looked at the tiny room and knew this was going to be hard. I dipped an arrow in slowing poison and fired at him, barely denting his health. To my horror, two others heard the shot and almost immediately joined the fray: a bandit chief with a two-handed mace and a sword and boarder. What followed was half an hour of reloading and trying different tactics.

My poor kitty got one-shot many times by the bandit chief and 2-shot by the other two-hander guy. I couldn't afford to let them hit me (btw, I have no shouts yet because I won't do the MQ with this character). Winning tactic was to slow all three bandits with poison and keep them slowed at all times; most deaths happened before I could do this. The trick was to sprint away a few feet if one got too close with a two-handed weapon and started to swing, and use those precious milliseconds when they were swinging at air to shoot the essential slowing arrow. Then followed very carefully kiting up and down the stairs, firing arrows dipped in lingering damage health, and cancelling any shots if I even suspected they'd get to within striking range before I could shoot. Still, the rooms were so tiny that at times I had to weave through several bandits, hugging the walls and praying their weapons wouldn't reach me. The window of opportunity for drawing the bow was small. It took me like 3-4 minutes of near-flawless play, several potions of health, fortify marksman and stamina, and tons of poisons to take them all down, but it was totally worth it!

This fight would have been trivial if I had stockpiled on paralyze poisons or had illusion spells (or sneak), but I purposely avoided those as well as anything I considered overpowered (no ranger or quick shot perks) exactly so I could get this sort of challenge from the game. Crazy? Nope. I just played Skyrim to death and needed something different.

If you want a challenge, consider a similar build. It is stupid fun. Only problem I can foresee will be the draugr, because they are immune to poison and hence will take a painfully long time to kill at high levels. I am planning on using a silver sword to kill them, but I don't think even improved and perked hide armor will let me go toe to toe with them. We'll see.

Sounds like good times! I had a similar experience in broken oar grotto it was crazy

Good lord, I don't see how you guys can play on Master. I'm getting plenty of challenge on Adept!

I always enjoy reading about your builds, though - thanks for posting this.

I assume the interior of the fort was its own cell, so just leaving and kiting outdoors wasn't an option?

I breeze through Master most times. What build are you using?

On-topic, sounds frustrating and boring. I like a good challenge, but having to reload and do the same thing over and over again seems tedious.

Any build. I've run pure mages, nightblades, pure thieves, assassins, heavy armor wrecking balls... the only thing I haven't really stuck with is sword & board. But none of those times have I ever sat back and thought "pffft; too easy - time to crank the difficulty up". Adept has always seemed just fine. From what I hear, Master pretty much makes enemies damage sponges; doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

Now, that said, I've never maxed out any skill, and most of my characters get done in the 20s. I just run out of things for them to do and want to make a new build.

But I can see how restricting yourself to kiting can be more fun than sneak-shotting everything. Once your sneak is high enough, I gather you can pretty much sit there and sneak-shoot forever.

Most of might fights are like that, except that I don't die. Instead I run in circles healing myself

Most enemies aren't damage sponges. Some high level enemies (bandit bosses) can soak up alot of damage, but otherwise, it's still rather easy.

Yea, but I would never do that in any case .

Most fights aren't even close to being this hard though. Interior cells usually start out with an empty room and a corridor, so you have plenty of kiting room and no danger of getting extra enemies joining in. This was just a nightmare layout, and I hope I find others like it . Funny thing is that the fort's prison was very similar (got attacked right at the entrance which according to beth's CK tutorials is a big design no-no), with 3 bandits to contend with and tight spaces, but there was a bit more room to kite in and no bandit chief so it only took a few attempts.

That fort sounds familiar - is it by any chance

Wait till you meet a shouting Draugr death lord in a sealed room with no kiting space at_all. Let alone 2 or 3 of them, which happens regularly later on. You'll never finish that with your build, I guarantee. I presume no followers?

I love those challenging dungeons that take all day (or sometimes even longer). I play on Master too now, and I can't bring myself to lower the difficulty.

I'm doing a non-dragonborn character atm, and he has a very weak build when it comes to face-to-face combat. That means there's a lot of trial and error and a lot of quick saves. I even like it when there's a dungeon that is impossible for a character to complete, and has to back out.

My current build is a sneaky rogue with nothing in dest, rest, 1-H, 2-H, conj, heavy, light or block. I was doing a TG quest with MF and it got to the point where we were completely surrounded by about eight draugr. After hours and hours of of trying sneak attacks and scrolls of guardian circle, there came a eureka moment where I found a gate that I could open and close. We got thru that section by me opening the gate - letting one draugr in at a time - killing it with archery while MF kept it busy with dual wield, then rinsing and repeating until all eight were dead.

Never done the civil war. It was Fort Hraggstad.


Yup, no followers. Draugr are not really challenging because they can't sprint. If there is very little room for kiting and he's a melee death lord that could be a problem, but I only recall one such place in the whole game (somewhere in Labyrinthian, I think) and he was still kitable, though at the time I was playing on adept.

There are several dungeons that lock you into a small area with 2+ Death Lords, can't remember the exact locations, but I do remember the fun. And that was with Stealth, followers, powerful weapons, etc. Good luck in your adventures