Well, Played an assassin and got bored of being uber-OP. Played a Heavy armor paladin, that was fun but I never died. Now I need a new challenge. First I only play on Master...love how hard it is. I have my ideas narrowed down to two (and a third pure mage, but no confusion on him, he will be a necromancer). The first is a light armor 2 handed Nord Barbarian. The second is a NON-sneak archer/ranger (done with being sneak OP). Now the ranger will use sneak, but no perks in it. Here are he builds:

Nord Barbarian:
Two hand
light armor
block (right side of tree and quick reflexes)
restoration OR alchemy
smithing (for dragon scale)

Nord Ranger (remember, not all sneaky-assassin-omg-one-shot-a-giant)
Archery (deep, most perks)
One hand OR two-hand (for axes only, up to the decapitation move...about 10 perks)
Block (with or without shield, at least 2 for quick reflexes)
Light armor
Alchemy OR restoration
Smithing (for dragon scale)
Enchanting (if i do alchemy NO enchanting...I refuse to support the crafting exploits, only two crafts max)


Thoughts on these? I find myself leaning towards ranger as I have never done deep archery before but I LOVE two handed decapitations SOOOOO much. If I were to do a two hand ranger...he would use swords not axes though...hate the look of some of hte two handed axes, but one handed axes seem very ranger/nordish. Anyone have some successful Ranger/warrio builds or barbarian builds?

Bump yo.

Oddly, I haven't tried a ranger warrior or a barbarian myself before. They both seem very interesting, though. I especially like the idea of not using Sneak with the ranger.

I like playing a Spellswordish mix,
Destruction to weaken them, then switching to a two hander to finish them off, basically your Ranger build using Destruction in place of Marksmanship.

I think either build could work. They both sound interesting. You might want to consider going up the right side of the smithing tree for the better weapons, especially since I cannot see either of these characters wearing elven or glass armor. Seems like they would look better in hides, furs and leather until they got their dragon scale. Going up the right side of the tree would let you smith your weapons better than the left side, which might be important if you are playing on master.

I would also suggest that alchemy might work better with these builds than restoration because alchemy will keep them connected with the earth, which is something that both rangers and barbarians seem to connect with in fantasy literature.

On the nord barbian: You have to look the part!

• No magic (alchemy ok)
  
• No armor above steel
  
• No weapons past steel

I highly recommend skyforge steel. It responds very well to smithing upgrades.

Well he is going for light armor barbarian/ranger here . . . but yeah, I have an anti-magic Nord warrior (not a barbarian) who wears wolf armor and wields a skyforge steel battle axe. He does no magic (not even for healing) and no enchanting/disenchanting, but alchemy is okay. I am roleplaying him as a Stormcloak soldier and the youthful headstrong nephew of Kodlak Whitemane. Great fun. His mantra is "Our is not to reason why, ours is but to fight and die." It is a nice change of pace from the typical mages and sneaky Khajiits that I usually play.

My worry is that I hear even on Master, archery can get too easy...I'm torn, both seem badass.

Here are the builds I made:

Nord Ranger:
http://skyrimcalculator.com/#107460

Nord Barbarian:
http://skyrimcalculator.com/#107458


I almost think with the high block 2 handed may be more fun...I do have 4 perks left over, so I may put those into either the heavy side of smithing for weapons, or drop them into enchanting for a small boost. Thoughts?

Orc Death Knight !

Magic is for the weak. Martial prowess is for the win. NO DEATH KNIGHT!

play a drunk

Huh.