I'm thinking of a new character build. And I want to either go with a Paladin type character or straight wizard slayer type.

I could combine them both, limiting myself to healing and turn undead spells, or I could go extreme with either...

Both Characters would use no enchanting or potion crafting, only smithing and what enchanted loot they would find, plus the Atronach stone. The character is a Breton. Mix of heavy armor and light guantlets/boots (to level both skills). Bow for ranged combat, otherwise greatswords for melee

Paladin - restoration spells, obviously, and what other skills perks would be considered? "Divine" self-buff spells seem hard to come by...

Wizard Slayer - no spells at all, even restoration, but the magic resistance is so tempting in the alteration tree....not sure how I could justify it RP-wise.

Thoughts?

Paladin - Alteration, armour spells, the magic resistance you mention, and light spells make sense for such a build.

Witch-hunter - You can get magic resistance from a quest, , and from the Lord stone. That's 40% without Alteration or being a Breton.

Roll a Templar, a paladinesque wizard slayer who believes magic is a sin of the world that must be erradicated, but is willing to tap on its power to be most effective against mages....maybe he has the goal to commit suicide once the world has been rid of mages.

You could go just for alteration in the sense that in order to destroy magic, you have to learn magic and get resistant to it, and restoration could be treated as just some kind of divine gift instead of a magic school.

For gameplay purposes, using wards and healing spells could be more compelling as no spells at all, that would feel like a regular warrior at the end....only inmune to magic hahaha.

Hmmm...never thought about the Lord Stone. Always went with Atronach for spell defense as it worked like old DND magic resistance, % chance spell won't affect you at all.

Alteration > mage armors for a Paladin? Not so sure...hmmm...will have to think about that.

Just noticed, when you quote someone with a "spoiler" tag, you can see the whole spoiler text in the quoted message, haha.

Healing and Turning spells are definitely intended as divine, as in DnD paladins. Not sure how I could justify alteration, (defensive harmony?) though.

For the wizard slayer, I could even go further and use no enchanted items at all...that could be tough, hehe.

Unfortunately, you can't use any magic. Which only leaves you with enchanting the hell out of your gear to make it magic resistant. But enchanting is also mage skill, so you'll paladin build is sort of going to stink in Skyrim.

For any mage slayer, use ward spells a lot. Get all the restoration perks for decreasing magicka cost, and get the best ward spells and also the magicka absorption ward perk. Greater ward, if you get it up in time, will block every spell from every spellcaster and even dragonfire.

Why would it stink? I can still find enchanted gear, and will have much spell resistance, plus what gear I do have would be top notch due to smithing improvements.

As for wards, that won't work too well, as I'll be wielding a greatsword, so no spell + sword combo.

paladin- alteration, mysticism (whatever schools have gotten the spells that should be in mysticism), 1h (maces), an armor skill (i would say dwemer or elven armour for a paladin), block and restoration (all paladins need healing)

witch hunter- archery, light armour...thats all i can think of without poison, disspell, agility and acrobatics

^^^my veiws on witch hunter and paladin classes (with the limitation of no poisons for witch hunter)

Alteration might be a choice, to make then, but only for light and armor spells I suppose, untill I can level up to the MR perks. It might be easier to combine both styles of play.

Another option for a Paladin would be the Speech skills, but a quick glance at them seems underwhelming. Speech options in dialogue are few and far between, it seems, but I could still take them for RP purposes.

Paladins are no fun anymore. Mainly because it is hard to pick a good weapon... It use to be that Chrysamere was the best weapon for Paladins because it is known as The Paladin's Blade!

Just thought of a few more spells for my paladin to use....out of the Illusion school, no less:

Courage
Calm (makes sense, right?)

A Paladin should take on Restoration, as some spells (Turn Undead) and perks (Necromage) helps against undead and undead are one of the most common kind of foes in Skyrim. That and the fact that it's the only school of magic seen as "holy" in Skyrim. A shame that healing spells don't harm undead.

Heavy Armor, as a paladin is all about protection over mobility. A steel plate armor seems very fitting for a pally and it has very good defense. With high level smithing it may even hit the armor cap. Aside from that, I'd go with Ebony. The armor may be black but it doesn't screams "evil" like Daedric.

Blocking (with a shield), with this you can take extra defense against spells latter, or go to the route of shield charge, wich is very satisfying for a paladin type of character.

One handed sword. And then go make the quest for Meridia, the only Daedric god who can relate very well with paladins and who can be seen as good in her sphere of influence. Her artifact, Dawnbreaker, is hardly phenomenal but it's very effective against undead and for RP purposes it is essentialy a Holy Avenger.

You can take some levels in destruction just to get some fire spells (most effective way to deal with undeads) and the Augumented Fire perk, wich will make Fire spells AND enchantments cause more damage, making Dawnbreaker more effective.

Smithing is a no brainer. It's hard not to use it when you depend so much on arms and armor.

If you don't mind investing in yet another magic skill, enchanting could be useful to make your own Holy Avenger, with fire and turn undead enchantments combined.

On the Wizard Slayer side of things, a weapon with heavy Shock enchantment is almost mandatory as shock has the secondary effect of damaging magicka and is the least resisted element. Again, Blocking with elemental shield seems the best choice here.

This is the Elder Scrolls universe and it's very different from both this and other speculated possibilities.

The body of the most powerful and to a great extent the leader of the gods has been incorporated into the world of Tamriel. This is why magic works.

A traditional Paladin really has no place here as there is no real referent for his existence.

Last time I checked undead were the most common enemy and wiches and necromancers are among the most common mage enemy type.

Anyone can claim an oath to Arkay and live his life to exterminate necromancers and their creations.

And the game provides just about everything a paladin would use against his enemies and to assist his allies.

I RP basically a Paladin of sorts, Heavy Armor, Block, One handed (mace), and a dash of restoration magic for some healing and wards. Instead of pure mage hunting I view myself more as someone like a vigil of stendarr, hunting evil mages, foul witches (hagraves), nasty necromancers and the undead, plus any sort of critter or person that falls into those categories. Between Elemental Protection and a high level of health, I find that the little sparkle fingered mages tend to fall like bugs before me

All these things are true.

The Paladin hatred of magic makes no sense in a world where one could maintain that refusing to use magic is sacrilegious and an insult to Lorkhan however.

I could be wrong but I think that he is mainly referring to hunting down evil magics and the profane, somewhat like the Vigil of Stendarr

I always specialised as a wizard slayer in Baldur`s gate bioware games. You got special bonuses like Wizards had a slightly less effect on you and you could disrupt their casting easier. There was also the negative aspect in that most magic things, except healing potions would not work for you. I always saw this as early warrior training in a particular field before you set out, like being in the army and specialising, learning the special benefits.

Brilliant.

Can`t do that here. You can go on a mission to kill wizards, but you get no special benefits (training knowhow) for it.

THIS is one reason why I miss Classes.

I've decided to lean more towards the paladin type, instead of the wizard slayer. I still won't use enchanting or any RP-breaking spells.

Dawnbreaker seems like a good idea, for a holy avenger...if only it were two-handed.

The spells I will use will be:

Heal
Turn Undead (variants)
Calm
Courage (for if/when I have companions)
XX Flesh (treat it as a divine protection, thought I might skip these altogether)
Candle/Magelight
Detect Life (along the lines of Detect Evil?)

I'm staying away from destruction spells, as I can't think of a good reason for why they would fit the character. It's not like paladins would have a huge repetoir of spells, anyway.

Still on the fence about either Lord or Atronach Stone...

Personally I say the Lord only because in terms of RP-ing it feels more appropriate for a stalwart Paladin.

I don't remember Paladins having issues against magic in general, Paladins are champions of a deity, they enforce the deity's "laws". In previous versions of D&D, for example, Paladins were strictly lawfull good, they obeyed the common laws and more fervorously the law instituted by his deity, they always tended to do honorable deeds and did what they could to protect the less favored people from evil doers. You wouldn't see a paladin lying or using his influence to attain a noble goal, because of her lawfullness, and she would have a very hard time killing an innocent to save an entire town, some going as far as not doing the deed and abandoning their calling after the tragedy.

Today D&D is much less restrict and Paladin is just a deity's champion, keeping an alignment at least close to that deity.

You can transcribe that in TES as being a Knight of a Temple, protecting priests and followers and smiting the enemies of her God. The God may have given a call for that champion and we even have past experiences to back that claim, such as the avatars of Mara, Zenithar and Talos in Morrowind.

You are essentially going for a spellsword build. But I suppose you could rp as a paladin. Question is, who's holy knight are you?

Ahh, I see. So that makes my present Dark Elf a Paladin of Nocturnal I guess. LOL.

Sword in the right, restoration in the left toggled with a shield, possibly spellbreaker. The restoration spells in Skyrim fit perfectly with an anti undead paladin, but I'm not sure about an anti mage dude.