After now playing this game for a month or there abouts and this being my first Elder Scrolls / RPG type game my inital play was just out of no information what so ever and after a while I understood more how it works and so I decided to be a bit more logical with the characters and wondered how others see this and if I will get the best benefit of the game, so heres what I have done so far:


NOTE: All characters can visit & unlock the cities and shop at all cities/thief & trade,

** full interaction with cities = Talking to people to do side quests.

Also I play each character type per week, so for 7 days I play Calius, then rotate to Shadow Of Valenwood ... and so on then loop back again, to keep things fresh.


1. “Calius” – Nord Warrior (main)

followed into Stormcloaks at the start and went the Riverwood/Whiterun route blindy (warrior stone).



2. “Shadow Of Valenwood” – Dark Elf Thief & Assassin

Under (thief stone) .. Ignored Riverwood, went to Riften (via carrage from Whiterun) as the base and started theif guild, building up archery, sneak, pickpocket etc.



3 “Malindrean” – Imperial Soldier

Under (Warrior Stone) .. Ignored Riverwood, went to Solitude (via carrage from Whiterun)to simply be a imperial soldier in the war.



4. “Mythreal” High Elf – Pure Mage

Under (The Mate Stone) .. Ignored Solitude (via carrage from Whiterun), went to Winterhold to become a mage type.




If they stick to there areas and only travel for money and guild requirement and they are living at same time as My Nord (in the role play aspect) and they would only briefly cross paths, and for me would mean I get to not repeat too much and also benefit from 4 character styles incl the story for my Nord.

So effectively When my Nord starts Stormcloack war, my Empieral female would be doind the same the other side, meanwhile before this my mage & elf are just sneaky little vermin running around like underlings exploring and so on.

You are going to want to at least make contacts in the College of Winterhold as a mage... they have all the upper-level spells, and ready access to soulgems (all the teachers sell them). You are gonna need lots of soul gems of all varieties (but mostly the Petty and Lesser, especially at first) in order to get your Enchanting skill going to a respectable level. Make friends with the Soul Trap spell... it likes you, and wants to help.

-Loth

Thanks, I have negleted the entire aspect of what your talking about, mainly becuase my Nord is doing well, then I started my thief (and that I love the most with archery and sneak so much more fun for me) and the emperial I will probably play interwined rotation with Nord now to experience war from side vs side.

But yes, thanks for tips, I realy want ome bad ass dark character for the mage/assisin becuase so far I have played the Nord as a good guy (well as good as it can be in this game), the elf helps but will corrupt later to get loot The Emperial female is just a staunch emperialsolder supporter and is a rigid character and pure Emperial. So the "Darkness" is yet to be unvealed.

My main question was, do you think this is a good aproach to this game, im just making sure Im "getting it"

BTW my spelling is a little rusty and spell checker in Firefox seems to be blocked by the forum, so sowwwy aboot thet

Yes, this will work for you. Arguably, a stealth mage perked up in Illusion is the most powerful kind of character you can make. I know some die-hard combat enthusiasts might argue with me on this, but the mage type of character simply has much more utility and a bigger bag of tricks up his/her sleeve to deal with varying situations. Merging this kind of tactical character with the stealthiness of an assassin will make for some very effective gameplay.

-Loth

I see your point, wouldnt argue it at all.

Hmmm, so, do I start a new character purely for Mage & quests, or do I get my well trained Elf in archery and sneak/thief to "Magic Up" ... I suppose I wanted to start in theory 4 different games instead of one. To make if feel more like they are all in Skrim at the same time (as much as it can be) and I can simply drop into thier lives as I wish and continue.

What do you think, start a 4th character as Mage and begin? Or get my trained thief/archer Elf to "go to the dark side of the magic force" to cover both sides as one character? Seeing as my elf is called "Shadow Of Valenwood" ... it works.

Just interested on what others views are, seeing as this type of game is my first. Either way I think playing like this and the hours I can put in, this game is going to last me a loooooooong time. Very happy with it, despite all complaints posted, I have experienced 2 bugs and 1 CTD after hours of play over a month and patches (off topc).

You might have more fun by starting a new char, because then you will be able to take advantage of level-ups to put into magicka -- which you will absolutely NEED to do for a while, if you want to be effective. Either that, or start as a High Elf, as they have +50 magicka for their racial bonus.

-Loth

Ah thanks for the tip, yes starting and building up through that discipline I suppose would be the best idea overall.

I was thinking that High Elf as mage, but then Im also torn with the perks of Khijat but training more for the Mage skills?

Whatever you pick as a starting race will dictate how you spend leveling points at the beginning, but as you get higher and higher level, it won't matter as much what race you are. Playing a stealth/mage hybrid, you will have more flexibility and power at the beginning if you are a High Elf.

BUT

You will sneak better as a kitty-cat.

It's up to you, my friend.
-Loth

Thanks, I see your point, well I made some discipline changes that I am going to try to stick to with each character. I updated my first post with what I have set out. This covers things like not repeating to many things per character, each character will have its own experience in only certain areas (some will overlap obviously with quests).

So hopefully I can ge the best out of all aspects and avoid repeats and enjoy 4 different game experiences & in theory all these characters were living at the same time.

Obviously if this isnt some peoples tastes fair enough, its just the main areas of character types I wanted to cover and svck the most out of these without stumbling on too much repeating.

Hope this helps anyone else new to things as some play style ideas.