I did almost exacty what you said as theif I put all my perks into sneak, pickpoketing alchemy, but to make it fair I added some to one handed and enchanting

I play pure thief, I dont kill creatures or bandits when i am at uneven odds, I only backstab when i can, i sneak past everything. i am a master thief, but I svck in actual combat.

Yes i have 2 characters, 1 pure mage and the other pure barbarian.
My altmer mage wears robes, boots and only uses magic

My nord barbarian wears ragged trousers, hide bracers, uses only meat and mead welding a battleaxe.
Both are challenging but fun

you know, i completely forgot that my enchanting kept leveling when i added gems. could call!

i'll definitely start disposing of my used up items for my non-magical nord warrior. dont' know why i didn't recognize how i was effecting my own gameplay, lol.

I think that's the case. That was probably written before the CK was available but the CK clearly says that archery is combat.

I played thief only once, was a pain in the [insert profanity] but it was alot of fun.

I did not use any weapons at all, i just went with the stone
How did i kill certain bosses? Well...pickpocket rocks with the poison perk ^^
For dragons i just made sure i sneaked about to certain walls that gave me dmg spells

Yes i am a thief, but i'm still the dragonborn with the shout abilities

according to the birthsigns behind the perk trees a pure thief is: archery, light armor, sneak, lockpicking, pickpocket, speech, alchemy

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/Lockpicking

edit: added link

except for mages.

And OP, I would do this, but then i cant master all my mage skills, cuz i have to get to level 81 for them all to be mastered....silly enough....

@osheao
@Cozar

Question for you guys and anyone else who says they can play at expert or above levels using only warrior skills, which means no healing and (no pansy waiting after every single battle): Do you use fast travel?

Here's why I ask. I don't ever fast travel, and one thing I have noticed is that I use more potions on randomn encounters outdoors than in dungeons. For instance, my 2H warrior took down the boss in Bleak Falls easily with no need for healing at about level 5. Then I walked to Windhelm and got my [censored] handed to me by a frostbite spider on the road. It seems like a lot of the randomn encounters I meet outdoors like frost bite spiders at lower levels and then around level 10 I start hitting ice wraiths and sabre cats, and I find stuff like that much harder than just about anything underground. Since I spend 80% of my time wandering the land where you run into stuff like that and where you don't find many potions, that may explain why I need to supplement my potion supply.

i have a nord loyalist that is 1-h/shield/light with some archery (minor skill). i only play at expert and master.
i don't fast travel. i use shouts.

i don't know what you mean by "no healing." yes, i use potions that i find. my breezehome is stocked full of all the xtra potions i've looted/found. everytime i go out adventuring i restock my potions.

i'm also not sure what you mean by "no waiting." time constantly goes by so my health auto-regenerates (btw, it irritates the hell out of me that we can't disable auto-regeneration) during combat.

i don't run away from combat until the enemies stop following me, then wait. if that's what you mean. when i start a battle it's on until someone wins, lol.

i just have way too many potions (of all types) stored at my home that never runs dry. i'm a guy who meticulously searches out loot. have been since i started gaming.

I probably need to use shouts more. Usually I forget about them.


By "no waiting" I mean that after a battle you are not hitting the "wait" button or just sitting there doing nothing while auto health regen does its magic before moving on with your adventure. I try to minimize potion quaffing during battles because it does not seem realistic to sip a potion while some bandit chief is trying to cleave my head in two with a big axe. Often I come out of a battle with only a scrap of health left. My mage characters will cast a spell but my warrior will quaff a potion. It would be easy to just hit the wait button and "wait for an hour" but that seems too cheap.

I agree that there should be an option to turn off auto health regen, and sneak crosshair, and compass icons, and compass, etc.

So true. When I was doing the Thieve's Guild quest line I did my best to stick to their basic idea not to kill anyone. One of the best experiences I had was following the guy through the warehouse by the docks below Solitude. It was a good feeling getting through that entire area without being detected by anyone. I wish there had been more of that. Too many areas in the game that should be off limits are not which means sneaking is irrelevant for the most part during those quests. You only have to be hidden to take whatever object it is you have to take but getting there and back is just a matter of walking in and out which left me wanting more.

It's an interesting idea just to level the areas the stone lists. I may have to try that some time. I do restrict my talents to very specific trees when I play a character but not to that extent.

lol-

no, i don't do that in skyrim.

now, in morrowind, i definitely hit the wait button, lol.

for skyrim, once the battle is ove i start my seriously meticulous looting. so my health is plenty full by the time i leave a room, hehe.

After reading this I decided to go ahead and give it a try, with the assumption that skills outside of the Stone can be used as they inevitably have to be, but no perks can be selected outside of the base class.

I am playing a thief. I was afraid it would devolve into something like that video on utube with the sneak guy and it more or less has, but it is still fun. She just sneaks around and backstabs stuff, and only a cupla times actually fought when she knew it would be easy. However, traveling around is precarious. Her trip to Azura's Shrine was pretty funny. It involved two full on chases back to Winterhold where the bears could get attacked by the guards, leaving one poor guard dead. She isn't very nice and is also in the DB so she doesn't really care how many bodies hit the floor.

Right now at level 23 she has 90 someodd Sneak and all the perks except Shadow warrior. I don't know about everyone else's but she has some passable skill at alchemy, but so far has only used one or two poisons so I am not leveling it much.

I find she feels like a character from the old Thieves World series. The thieves were deathly afraid of the city guard or any merc who was well equipped and trained, as it should be. That is of course in a straight up fight which was to be avoided at all costs.

yes I love pure builds in fact

I even wasted points in lockpicking so I can seem more thief-y

i do the same thing for rp purposes.

some really good ideas for gameplay in this thread.