Hi there,

i'm a pretty new player here at Skyrim but enjoying it a lot. I have a female Nord that uses a bow and 1 handed sword plus shield. I do seem to sneak a fair bit and so far things have been great.
I did start a bit off the main quest (slaying the first dragon with the help off the guards) and earned enough money to buy the house in Whiterun. But now i'm a bit stuck.

I have a few quests that i can follow but the "bosses" seem to be very hard for me at this time. So i was thinking off leveling a bit more before i continue my quests. But then i read something that when you explore the map and enter a few dungeons, you can ruin some questslines and get yourself stuck forever.

Is this true? And if so, what can i do to level up without the risk off breaking questlines? Just dont want to make a early mistake that has a result late ingame.

Thanks for the advice and have fun with Skyrim

Honestly, that's not something you'll know unless you look up the specific quest lines that might be involved. As for my play throughs, 3 of them in total, I've yet to experience any quest lines that have broken as a result of prematurely exploring a dungeon. I can, however, think of a few instances where this might happen, especially with some of the guilds.

in my experience, exploring caves before the quest leads you there ends up in either an empty dungeon for you to walk through and finish the quest easily, a dungeon with respawns monsters to kill again (usually different than the ones before), a locked door that requires a key you can't get without the quest started, and lastly the NPC will often have a dialogue already that says, "I already have the book you're looking for." etc..

I would not just go into random dungeons and caves. I'd get the quest first. Anyway travel around, go to inns and taverns, there a plenty of easy quests to do. Whiterun offers fairly easy quests. Maybe join a guild. Lastly you can lower the difficulty. It's no big deal, lower it and make the game fun for you. There is no reason to have it extremely hard and frustrating. The game is supposed to be fun and challenging but not to the point of a headache. I lowered it for some bigger bosses then turned it right back up. Now I play on master with no problems. It's just right.

You can also upgrade your weapons and armor at smithing stations and go buy or make some enchanted stuff, that always helps.

Thanks for the great help people. I will go travel around a bit and see if i can pick up some easy quest on the way. I didn't know that you could lower the difficulty when you have started a character (i should have spend more time on the forums i guess) so will try that as a last resort.
Its not that i'm not enjoying the game at this moment, its just that i feel that the bosses are a bit to hard for me right now and they are the onces that finish a quest

Thats true because i did the Bleak Falls Barrow dungeon in search for the golden claw and went all the way to the finish. I found a dragonstone and the shout at the end and being a compulsive looter, i took the dragonstone with me. When i then traveled to Whiterun, the jarl's wizard wanted me to retrieve a stone that he found very important. And indeed, there was an option in the dialog where i could hand over the stone right away.

And just one thing that happend to me just yesterday. I was exploring the surrondings off Whiterun when i stumbled into a camp. At first i thougt they where friendly travelers or merchants so i put away my bow and walked closer. Being so close to the Jarl's city, it couldn't be a bandit camp, right?
Well, after i took a arrow to the knee , i reached for my sword and killed them all (just 2 off them ) No cave or indoor area was connected to this camp so i guess they are just random encounters. Had fun and will continue to have.

Once more, thanks and happy gaming!

I have played 450 hours and only ran into this once. Don't worry about it to much. Oh yea the questline that was bugged is the companion one. But I just continued with thier request and it eventually worked out after a couple quest later.

This. Don't worry about it and just enjoy the game It's much more fun to discover random caves/forts, etc. and act on your curiosity than to hold back and wait just in case a proper quest giver might appear.

I thought that in some cases if you were to kill a quest boss in a dungeon it would start the quest for you,

Just explore and hunt on the tundra near Whiterun, theres loads there, helped me level archery a few levels...

If you really want to get your skill levels up and get some easy combat practice I would advise you to just travel around the map following the paths and dirt tracks. This way you will come across mainly minor enemies that should not be too much of a challenge and should help getting used to combat. Once you feel that you can deal with these enemies comfortably then you should get some quests at dragonreach that is in whiterun. By doing this you will be given your own companion by these people that will follow you about fight along side you if you want and then you will be much more powerful when you enter any cave or dungeon.

You can change the difficulty at any point, not just at the beginning. If in a particular combat you just can't keep from being killed you can lower it for one battle then move it back up again.

I agree with the poster who recommended spending time just wandering and exploring. There are enough random encounters and bandits who are outside of dungeons to fight. Don't rush questing. There is no hurry.

Once more, thanks a lot people for your friendly help!

I do agree with most people that exploring is fun and the game should not be rushed in any way. I just became a bit scared after reading some posts that you could break quests by cleaning dungeons without the right quest.

Lucky you guys (and girls offcourse) have convinced me that there is no problem with exploring this great world and get some practice while i'm on the move

So i will go out and see what the game trows at me!
Let the fun begin!

That`s exactly the way to play it. Don`t worry about breaking anything, though you may solve some quests by accident!

There is no reason to delay exploring. Exploring is the fun of Skyrim. If you would just follow quests, you could be playing a linear game just as well.

There are a few quests that can be ruined this way, but they can be fixed with the console and often the fixes have been explained on https://unofficialskyrimpatch.16bugs.com/projects/7078. And I hope the official patches will help some more.