Hey there

Since many creatures and enemies are still partially levelled, i'm wary of how to level my roleplay character.

I would like the character to craft themselves a set of glass armor, and then improve it enough to wear it the entire game as a tribute to Morrowind and her fellow Dunmer. But, i'm wary of doing it since to level smithing to 100 (for the abilility to improve the armor) and then enchanting (to make +% smithing clothes) and/or alchemy to make potiosn of +% Smithing.... it sounds like the character would have an silly level without a single combat skill.

Then again, could I not use the perks, then not level up any further except in fighting skills? Either way, however, the character would be at least level 10+?

Could someone help me out with how this works in practice? The wiki explains how to do it, but nto how it plays out and the repercussions.

My advice would just be to level the abilities as you can, rather than trying to power level them in any way. Maybe do that at later levels, but early in the game, you leave Riverwood or Whiterun and enemies rip your heart out.

Yeah, suppose you are right. As long as I am careful in my roleplay and spacing of quests then I shouldn't be in nay postion to craftt he armor for a long while anyway. =)

How does one level up smithing and enchanting before "starting out"? Don't you need raw materials and money?

I ground out Smithing to 100 on both of my characters (Adept; one Heavy Armor and one Light Armor) and I didn't experience the difficulty people mention.

Well, my problem was that all of my skills kinda snowballed. To get the mats, you have to steal them. To steal, you pick locks and sneak around. Then you smith, sell them back to gain Speech skill points. Then you buy more, get more Speech, have to steal to buy mats. Repeat the second step, and it just kinda got out of hand. ._.
Steal everything you need. People keep a lot of soul gems lying around for no reason.

Here's an alternate approach: With smithing at 60, you can take the arcane perk, which allows you to improve enchanted armor. As you develop your character and your bankroll, start grinding at vendors and lootable places for a complementary set of enchanted glass armor, then improve it as much as your smithing skill and fortify-smithing items/potions will allow. This saves you the approximately 10 levels worth of perks needed to get the enchanting tree populated enough to produce better results than pre-enchanted gear.

You can cover all the proper resistances and several augments with 7 pieces of armor and 2 jewelry. You can carry multiples of some pieces with complementary enchantments, then equip the ones you need most during difficult fights. (E.g., 3 shields to resist fire, frost and shock as needed. Same with boots, which allows a mix and match on the fly.) The hard part is finding all the pieces that work well together to give you powerful protections and augments across the board. I agree with you--enchanting is way expensive. I can't see dropping all those perks into it when there are so many no-brainer places to spend them as your character develops. You would have to hamper his/her growth to service enchanting, which I think is a poor decision. The ability to place 2 enchantments per item is way seductive, but so far I have not been willing to pay the heavy cost.

The above advice is pretty much what I would have given in this instance. 60 smithing is all you really need to get "good" gear without going overboard in to "uber". And collecting/purchasing means that you wont really need to grind for glass smithing since its sold/found relatively early on anyway. Plus if you want a minor spoiler for free glass armor ;

Ah, that explains a lot. The way I did it was to chop wood in Riverwood and buy iron ore, iron ingots and leather strips and do the Iron Dagger thing.

It's not for "no reason". Those are meant to be gifts for children...for children!

Edit:
OMFG yes! I was pretty high level when I did it on my 2nd character, but, yeah, I made like 4 trips back and forth because I wasn't about to leave all that behind.