I'm going to start a new game and do absolutely zero smithing or enchanting. I normally play on master difficulty. Is that still possible without the aid of smithing and enchanting? Or is lowering it to maybe expert a better idea? Thanks again.

Play master and see. I would expect you get your rear end handed to you on a nice shiny plate.

Not if you know what you're doing.

If you want to use smithing and not be overpowered then just take the steel and arcane smithing perks, then just improve what you find.

What build are you going to use? I didn't have to much trouble with heavy armor, block, 1h, restoration and conjuration (without smithing). The most defensive way you can play, I don't think that character even died on master, came close though.

Not taking those just makes the fights take longer which translates into more opportunities for mistakes. It really does not add much difficulty to the mix. If that is difficulty to you, sure go for it.

Well I think I'm an average player. I'm definitely not the best. I just thought it would make for a fun experience to go that route as well as free up perks to put in skill trees I don't normally use. I guess the best way to find out is to just try it. Just wanted to see what others had experienced. I was problably going to do a more dual wielding assassin type of character or maybe a barbarian. I dunno yet. Still brainstorming.

From the start, iv either played no Enchant\Alch\Smith or just one of them. So I havnt been a "2 shot dragons dead" sort of player. However just doing that I found I can one shot your normal mobs sometimes and yet still get owned hard by bosses. You may find yourself changing the difficulty to something lower when you hit a boss. But you do learn to play better thats for sure.

Alch; I found not a big deal really. However the "pause, drink, pause, drink..." combo is annoying as hell. Actually, this proffesion is annoying. I don't do it anymore. If you find yourself drinking a lot, you're either doing something wrong or a boss mob is badly designed maybe?

Smithing can make you very tough if you level it too quickly. You will know if you do as the armour you're wearing (ork armour for example) may not drop from mobs or chests. Try to wear the same gear as the mobs, if not a bit better. With no runecrafting you will want to find gear with good enchants which makes running dungeons a lot more fun. My warrior hit 30 with no magic resist (never found any) and I have to kill wizards very fast. Fun.

Runecrafting can make the game far easier. However if you go a cloth wearer (wizard) then consider it. Ill never take it with a light\heavy armour character.

Overall I found if you go heavy armour, then proffesions can be overpowered depending how you use them. By not using them, there are a lot more skill tree's to play with which in itself is a lot of fun.

You have to use better tactics to survive if a 2h enemy will kill you in 2 hits. Dodging, blocking, bashing, running away to heal etc.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. I've leveled 4 characters so far up into the 40's and I've done smithing on all of them and enchanting on one of them. Now I don't want to start another thread on how broken or not broken those professions are but I just found, that for myself, it was getting boring having all this bad ass gear relatively early on. I just think relying on finding or buying it will make for a funner game, for me that is.

Its possible but you will have an extreme time trying to play it.

of course it is... you will just be running backwards aaaalllllottttt