Well I always start out on master and plan to adjust from there if it's too much to handle, but so far my builds have coped well (except my first try-out character which missed out badly, so I restarted instead), and I haven't had to lower it yet.

But I agree, it would add so much to the game if we could actually fail quests and take some kind of penalty for it, instead of always being forced to succeed. I know from dice times we didn't succeed in everything we set out to do, and the GM managed to bake that into the overall progress.

If you go master, which I have not done yet I play expert.
I would suggest stealing almost everything and joining the thieves/ dark brotherhood straight away. The more gold you have
the faster you can train up on whatever skill you want, and you can boost your levels fast by of course using alchemy and blacksmithing for levelling, and then training another five times in between to utilise and
maximise your characters potential quickly.

definitely YES

I'm on my first playthrough. Playing a thief/assassin on Master. I've only experienced two really lengthy/difficult fights which required multiple reloads and a lot of luck to win without leaving and coming back better equipped or reducing the difficulty level temporarily. The first was with the 3 mercenaries that hunt you down within the first 10 levels of the game. They are tough and at that point your gear usually is not rather crappy. I had to stock up on potions, run away, hide, recoup, run away, separate them, run away, etc. to pull this off. Also used a follower who didn't last long. The second was the pyromancer you fight at the end of the Sanguine quest. He had more hitpoints than I could count and dealt A LOT of damage really fast.

Other than that, I have not had any long fights. My experience is that you either win or die quickly on Master and the learning curve on how to win after you've died quickly is pretty quick. For my character, it usually boils down to whether or not I summon Sanguine to draw aggro away from me while I ping away with arrows at the boss.

I'd rather play master because it forces you to actually use the cool capabilities you have like alchemy, etc. On easier difficulty, I wouldn't need any of that and I'd be slicing through the game like a hot knife through butter.

Ultimately, I think it depends whether you prefer the combat or the role playing. If roleplaying is your preference, I'd go for an easier difficulty.

R/Nick

I'm playing a solo playstyle plate wearing mage and i played master from day one and never looked back (not even considered other levels). I'm lvl 30 now and i completely finished 2 major questlines and i'm almost midway into the main storyline. I feel with this playstyle the difficulty is well balanced at master, i generally handle easily normal situations, i have some difficulties (read: i have to reload a few times and make use of staves or potions) against groups and i have hard time (read: i need to retreat and regroup and use lot of stuff in my arsenal) against bosses and boss-level fights, like i think it should be. Sometimes i even need to use alchemy and enchanting skills to solve some high level bosses by preparing some specific resistances or buffs in advance, which i find interesting because it adds a tactical layer in a game which usually hasn't. No skill grinding is involved in my playstyle, skilliing and leveling is always legit and i even impose some artificial limits on how much i can raise alchemy by trying to not use my reagents (which i have plenty cause i'm a collector, i could easily max out alchemy if i wanted). I think that with a follower it would be significantly easier but i don't like having followers, i freely use summons though. I plan on switching from a mage to a stealth archer whenever i feel my magic power has become too powerful to keep the game interesting. So far the game is a lot of fun.