Okay, so I completed the main quest, and a ton of other game content. After the main quest, and at level 56, I felt there was nowhere else i could take the character without leveling completely unrelated skills, so I "retired" him. He was fun as hell. Mystical Warrior, Nord, dual-weilded bound swords or bow, specialized in illusion, alteration, conjuration (obviously), never wore greater than hide armor on his body (went to dragonplate gauntlets)....but I digress.

On this character, I spammed enchanting, smithing and alchemy (somewhat, for health+magicka potions), so nearly half-way through the game, I stopped finding any gear that I cared about finding, since I enchanted everything, and it was better than anything I could come across, so the "exploring" aspect was gone.

I'm thinking of a new build. I know I've started threads about paladin's and such, but two-handed combat is WAY too slow to be any fun...not sure if it got any faster.

TO THE POINT

What I had in mind for this character was a ranger style character. He would only use smithing insofar as to improve what gear he finds, no enchanting, and alchemy for poisons and coinage. He would likely not wear higher than improved leather armors, since elven and up do not fit the character. He would specialize in sneak + archery with one-handed as a backup. I'm including other thieving skills (pickpocket, speech, lockpick [but no perks]), so I can get around to the thieves guild.

One of the character concepts I'm thinking about is one that has an animal companion, preferably a wolf. I know there is Conjure Familiar, but that does not scale well....at all...I know eventually I could summon two familiars, if I read the wiki description correctly. Is there any other wolf/dog type companion other than the random sheep dog? Keeping in line with the theme, I would also do the Companions this time around.

Any thoughts or ideas on this type of build? Hopefully it will pose more of a challenge not using enchanting or super smithing, only relying on the gear that I find and crafted potions/poisons.

UESP:


Animals
In addition to NPC followers, war dogs and a goat are also recruitable.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Meeko Can be found at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Meeko%27s_Shack.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Vigilance Can be purchased from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Banning at the Markarth stables for 500 septims. As with the hirelings, if you dismiss Vigilance, he will return to Banning and you must pay the 500 septims again to get him back.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Stray_Dog These can be found in a random encounter in the wilderness. If you talk to one, it will become your follower. Note: Will disappear if told to wait and you enter a dungeon.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Gleda_the_Goat Recruited in the quest http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:A_Night_To_Remember. Gleda will not fight, and can not be spoken to. She will follow you until you return her to http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ennis.


Lol. I would definitely go for the goat!!

Only animal followers are the dogs.

Ah, Meeko would probably work, as long as I downloaded a 'Dog to Wolf" skin mod, and made him essential (like dogmeat!)

I've heard that a conjured familiar can improve depending on the animal it kills, any merit to this?

According to the wiki, Twin Souls and Summoner perks affect Conjure Familiar. Anyone know if any other conjuration perks affect the spell?