Hi there,

I'm curious as to what people think about this - if they've notivced it or not; is it a good / bad thing?

I was having a battle with a Bandit Chief. To give some context, I'm lvl 23 spellsword (difficulty adapt atm - first run though), most combat and magic abilities 40-50+, a few perks on destruction, armours and one handed. The bandit chief was armed with full steel plate and armed with a elven dagger, me mostly dwemer with ebony helm and boots and a pair of ebony axes (+shock damage). With each attack, the chief was knocking up to a quater of my health off me, whereas my axe was doing only tiny, incremental health damage to the bandit chief. I had to pop a fair few heath potions to get my health back to full, and by the end of the battle he'd probably done twice the damage I had - I just had the advantage of potions.

Now, this to mee seemed a bit, well, wrong. Not that the game is challenging, I don't mind that, but that this guy and his dagger was doing 2-4 times the damage with his dagger as I was with my axes.

This wasn't the only time. I've had NPCs in leather armour taking less damage than me in my heavy armour, and by a fairly noticeable amount. I can out manover them easily enough, but it's odd that whilst I need to move out of the way to avoid getting hit, even in heavy armour, they don't.

I've noticed it in other areas too. Destruction spells cast by NPCs with cut huge swathes out of my health, whilst my return spells barely make a mark on their health. Two fire balls and my health is all but gone, two of my fire balls and they aren't even below 75%. Oddly, this is not true of archery. A bandit bowman will barely touch my heath, whilst I'll knock chunks off theirs, and my archery skill is below 30...

Anyway, has anyone noticed this, a kind of imbalance between what NPCs and the PC are capable of? Is it just to balance the enhanced capability of the player, or is it poor realism? I can't make up my mind...

If you play the game just to play it, your character will develop the way you have. The game will get stronger as you go up in level. In some places, the NPCs will be much stronger than you, in some they will be weaker. Note, level, whatever it is, is established when you discover the place. So, save after you discover it but before you go in, if you get your butt kicked, come back in 5 or so levels. Or, use better tactics or strategy. Or, use a follower. Or drop the difficulty for that one place.

Or, you develop your character some more. Now, you can grind a character so that it is always stronger than the game and not have to worry about an enemy ever again. Or, you can buff your character so it is a little stronger or uses a little better equipment or has more attack and defense options and still has a challenge. Be careful how you do this so that you build what you want to play the game the way you want to.

Enemy level is based on when my character discovers the location? That svcks, as I could discover the dungeon at level 5, while en-route to somewhere else, and raid the place at level 60 with minimal resistance.

Enemy level should be set when I actually enter a location.

Damn, he's only got a dagger?

I'm scared of Bandit Chiefs with Two handers. Sometimes the minion Bandits have two handers with two handed enchanted jewelry or gear as well.. and they fight like bandit chiefs.

If a radiant quest sends you back there, the boss will be keyed to your level. At least it seems that way.

I'm not having a problem killing them. I've got enough health potions in my pack these days to take down a dragon with little more than a limp nirnroot leaf. It's more that a bandit chief with only a dagger can do more damage than I can with an ebony axe. I've have no questions if he did less damage more quicly than I could, but when his dagger has a greater damage potential than my ebony axe has then something seems out of place.

Ok, I'm not a one-handed specialist (man, that sounds wrong...), bit of a jack-of-all-trades spell sword, but I'd not expect a dagger to be doing much damage to a guy in mixed dwemer and ebony heavy armour.

And I can even deal with these NPCs blasting fire balls that do three times the damage my own do. What I'm curious about is why this is so? Why is an NPCs weapon or spell so much more potent than my own?

You are right, it sounds wrong

personally, i've played master and expert and noticed a huge difference between chief bandits, but, i can still kill the chiefs on master.

i just can't see how a chief bandit, whatever level with whatever gear, can beat you on adept.

they're so much easier to kill just going from master to expert.

Saying you're in dwarven and ebony armor isn't any indication of how durable you are. How much health do you have? What is your armor rating? I am going to be more durable in Iron Armor compared to someone in Ebony Armor if I have more health than them and a higher armor rating. I imagine since you're a spellsword, you're health and armor rating are low.


That bandit leader is of boss level. He's going to automatically do a lot of damage to you. It doesn't matter about his gear, in fact, elven is high end gear for bandits. Fear them if they are using anything elven. Again, you're skill with one handed weapons isn't as high as his or you would have out damaged him. Also, ignore enemy gear for the most part, the reason that bandit didn't have say an ebony sword to match his damage, is due to complaints about bandits wearing high end gear in the last game.


Yes, enemy mages get a damage boost to spells against the player. I believe this is to balance the player's gear and stone choice. Now instead of me using fortify one handed ring, I should really equip my magic resistance ring, for example.

The archery example you gave has been answered by above posters. The archers were lower level than you so they didn't do much damage. A bandit thug with a bow, for example, is going to do a lot more damage and take less damage than just a regular bandit.

Doesn't grinding raise your level just the same as playing without it?

What difficulty do you play? The harder the difficulty, the more damage they do, and the less you do to them.. though i think it is really a scaling on their health and damage resistance..

So far I've played only on master difficulty, and I don't think there is a problem on being too hard. Quite on the contrary; I'd expect more frustrations than I currently do, and at some point the game becomes too easy. Sure, I run away from many fights when I'm out of cards to play, but that's only part of the deal of upping the difficulty.

Some encounters are just impossible at low level and/or non focused playing. I'm guessing that may happen, but to lesser extent, also on lower difficulties.