On my most recent playthrough, I think i hit a difficulty spike at 29. For instance, before then, Dragons were a pain, but relatively easy if I could keep them on the ground.

Now, it's more often a case of "What the heck just hit me?" I get killed within a few seconds after taking precautions! And of course, enemies have also suddenly become harder to kill- I used to be able to take on four or five bandits at a time (barely surviving, of course), and now I'm running into issues taking on half that, even after using sneak attacks and magical protection.

Is there an actual difficulty spike of this level around 29? Or is my current build so ill-performing that a "normal" difficulty jump turns into a significant difficulty spike?

Yep...9,19,29, 39... these seem to be the places where the monsters level up.

Don't you mean new, tougher versions like draugr scourge instead of wight? Only a few specific enemies seem to have a levelrange, the Master Vampire being one of them.

Yes, but are those just relatively normal jumps in diffculty, or spikes that are difficult for everyone?

I thought the leveling system had pulled a fast one on me yesterday. Then I realized that the stupid quest designer had given a Falmer 20 damage glass arrows instead of the usual 7 damage ones.

Yeah, I started having trouble around that level. Started noticing that I would probably do more damage with harsh language than with my Ebony Great Sword.

Yup, around level 30 the combat becomes "one hit kill or be one hit killed". Then at level 50 the "or be one hit killed" disappears too.

Don't you just love level scaling?

Ok, thanks!

Was worried I'd have to axe my current character and try a 4th restart...

Yes. A new Dragon, Frost Dragon, appears at level 30. Frost Dragons are more deadly than the Blood Dragons which began appearing at level 20. Here's a brief comparison:

Blood Dragon:
Health 1421
Stamina 164
Bite damage 75
Shouts: Frost Breath, Ice Storm

Frost Dragon:
Health 1860
Stamina: 197
Bite damage 150
Shouts: Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force

Pretty often, I run into a situation that is just impossible. Dragon keeps flying around, breathing fire at me. Won't land long enough for me to get to it and hit it, before taking off again. The fight is just impossible. I run away. It works.


Yeah there is difficulty spikes. But I think it's because I got most of my levels from smithing, enchanting and alchemy. No combat skills were increased, with no perks spent in them. You can hurt yourself concentrating on the production skills. Or at least I think I did.

I found that to be exactly true... and very lame. Aside from countless bugs, all of the series suffer from balancing.

At Level 69, I'm finding they have flip-flopped again, and dudes with higher-level weapons (but no enchantments) are dealing out big damage in groups, and my armor rating is well over 800! I can even get it over 900, and the same thing occurs depending on situation.

Strangely, Ancient Dragons are real wusses right now with Dragonbane and Spellbreaker, but other weaker creatures and people are harder. What they level up is strange and confusing at best.

Now bugs are preventing the 'equalizer' from working, shield charge. Which is a deal-breaker for me. Over 450 hours, and I am waiting for the 1.5 patch.

Actually, you have an armor cap of 500-something. Anything above that is really just bragging for the most part- useful for some game effects that automatically bypass a given amount of rating, but not for combat.

A lot of players don't know/don't realize that if you level non-combat skills, you will level up but your combat capabilities will not. At the same time, enemies will level up and their combat capabilities will increase - every time that happens, they will keep pulling ahead of you and things will get harder and harder.

Huh? After lvl 25 the game becomes super easy even on "master" difficulty.

True, but then you have overpowered enchantments/items/potions, so it normally nullifies the enemy level increase.

I agree. I believe smithing and alchemy and enchanting ought to be seen as auxilliary combat skills. Smithing, for example, raises a weapon skill, just as using the weapon does. It also raises AR, just as getting hit during battle does. Enchanting fortifies weapon and armor skill. Alchemy fortifies and replenishes health. And so on. Raising these skills helps a character fight enemies just as much as raising the more common combat skills do.

The only skills that can adversely affect one's performance against enemies if raised too often per character level are Speech, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing.