I started playing Skyrim a few weeks ago and since day one I've always played on Master. But right now I feel like the game is a bit to easy and once you get around level 30-35 everything just feels pointless since you don't really need gold anymore, you have better weapons/armor then you can find etc etc.

So I was thinking about playing the game in a more challenging way and I would love if you guys could help me come up with some ideas to make the game for challenging and rewarding even at higher levels.

I ideas I have already are the following:

1) Not allowed to use companions (definitely not allowed to get a companion to buy skills ups and then take the gold back)
2) Not allowed to buy anything from any type of merchant. So if you wanna raise your tradeskills then you gotta go farm those flowers and iron bars yourself. (Hm I guess you can buy spells since it would be impossible to find them all)
3) Or instead of 2) just ignore Enchanting and Smithing all together (since the game kinda dies if you start to craft the best armor and enchant it)
4) No saving and loading if you get caught by guards, pay it or serve your time in jail.

If anyone got some other ideas to make the game more challening feel free to share them! I would love to hear your ideas and to play an extremely challenging and rewarding Skyrim.

See sig. If you follow the build to the letter with the extra challenge rules, it'll be tough in certain areas, especially early on. I can think of several builds that are much harder (melee), but then it might get frustrating.

edit: or just play Dead is Dead.

Stop abusing crafting skills. It makes dungeon delving fun again. Or at least stop putting perks into smithing or enchanting; I personally love alchemy and thinks it adds a lot of depth.

You may even have to play on a lower difficulty.

I'm glad someone is doing something similar. It definitely makes the game a lot more worth playing. I like the idea with not using any of the power stones. I will definitely not use those.

I'm thinking about playing some kind of Mage since I never tried that. Or possible a 1 hand + shield user who similar to your archer uses mass Alchemy. Maybe add something like that I'm not allowed to craft a certain potion unless I buy the recipe for it from a merchant

Think I'm gonna add NO fast travel to the rules as well. I can use the dude with a wagon though

There's already a few threads on Skyrim's "Difficulty Plateau" issues. The two main culprits are Crafting abuse and lack of foresight on Bethesda's part when designing end-game encounters.

There's also a thousand different smaller, or unreasonably-difficult-to-solve issues that contribute too, but those are the ones that contribute the most.

Have you tried turning off the HUD? Or if you are on a PC, just turn off the GPS Compass and sneak crosshair. That can add challenge in a variety of ways.

No GPS compass means you have to look around for enemies, rather than looking for the red dots. No enemy health bars means you don't know how much health your enemies have left and you have to use visual clues to figure out what type of enemy it is. Bandits tend to all look alike so you have to treat each one like it was a Bandit Chief.

No crosshair makes aiming more challenging and no sneak crosshair means you have to look around and pay attention to the other NPCs to determine whether you are hidden or not. I pickpocketed my way through Marketh one night with no HUD and it was a blast.

I don't know how well it will pay off in the long run with regard to making the game more challenging, but one thing I am doing with the PC I just started is spreading out the perks I take every time I level up, and spreading out health/stamina/magicka increases as well.

Meaning, the first time I leveled up I took health, the second time stamina, the third time magicka, and so on. I plan to keep doing that instead of focusing on one or two and letting the rest slide because I don't think my character will need it as much. So, playing a warrior type I may not need a boost in magicka on every third level-up, but I'm taking it anyway to avoid stacking up so much health and/or stamina and that might make things a little more interesting as the enemies get stronger. And also I can't resist enchanted gear, and piling up a lot of one attribute and then finding something that gives me a big extra boost in the same thing can make me feel OPed very early.

With regard to perks: what I mean there is, whatever the skills are that I feel my character should make the most of (or that I simply can't resist for some reason), I don't take perk after perk in the same one even though I'm very much tempted to do so in some cases. I am not going to take multiple perks in a row in Smithing, or in Enchanting, or in Alchemy, or in just 2-3 selected skills overall, even if my levels in those individual skills would allow it. It's much easier with Smithing now since I can't just spam low value items to level up there anyway, but I don't know about the other crafting skills... either way, it means that I'm less likely to manipulate my character's behavior so I can level up quickly in one thing and take all the delicious perks in that particular skill. Instead I know that I'm going to take the first available perk in Smithing, then the first available in Heavy Armor, then the first available in Two-Handed, then the first available in Archery, and so on in whatever order that appeals to me, right down the list of skills, instead of piling up perks in just one area even if I can. Heck, I might even take the first available perk in every single skill ASAP, even the ones that are not really part of my intended playing style, just to see what happens.

Yes it kinda kills the whole point of having a character who is specialized in certain areas appropriate to his/her chosen "profession" in the game, but it should keep the most used skills from becoming OP as quickly as they might.

Also it may be an obvious thing to some, but on my first couple of playthroughs I was all over the place on weapons because I kept finding or obtaining really cool ones and I just wanted to use ALL of them, lol. With the current PC I have decided on 2H weapons, bladed only except for the bow. That means if I end up with Spellbreaker, sorry, it goes on the wall as a trophy or gets handed off to a follower. I'll just have to make do without it. We'll see how long I last on this, though, since i only really started to get the hang of blocking and shield-bashing with my last PC and I really liked it.

- No fast travel; use of carts is ok if used sparingly.
- Set smithing limits by type and/or materials used*
- No helpful glitches/exploits
- Only smith what you'll use (selling allowed in bulk if limited as above)
- Pick a weapon type and stick to it
- Roleplay.
-- Set yourself morals (or rather your character)
-- Give your character quirks/phobias (My character looks up at High Hrothgar being entering Whiterun almost everytime and he has a phobia of giants after being chased from Dawnstar to Whiterun by one)


* example: One unit per day.
- Daggers: 1 unit
- Rings: 0.5 unit
- Necklaces: 0.5 unit
- Circlets: 1 unit
- One-handed: 1 unit
- Two-handed: 2 units
- Bows: 1 unit
- Shields: 3 units
- Armour: 3 units

To name just a few...

Ditto, the only time I use fast travel is if something causes a CTD (rare, but it happens) and I've just spent a long time trudging down a road or through the wilderness trying to get somewhere, and then the reload puts me all the way back at the town or marker from which I started my journey... yes, in that case I will fast travel to whatever known location is closest to the place I was when the game crashed, because in the event of a crash I'm willing to cut myself a little slack.

The carriages I will always use if I'm in a hurry for some RP or even real life reason, or if I would just be walking the same route anyway and (especially late game) have already discovered pretty much everything there is along the way. And usually late game I have plenty of money to spend, so that's one thing I will spend it on even though the rides aren't all that expensive. I just role play that using the carriage is one of the perks of being independently wealthy, lol.

I only limit myself to a few items: some potiins, scrolls and soul gems, 2 daggers and a staff for weapons and a couple changes of clothes (keeping my weight at least under 200). Also I never take more than 24 arrows. Ut makes dragon fights pretty interesting when you run out of them!

If I'm playing a nord, I stick to leather or steal armor and weapons. Basiclly stick to the weapon sets that 'belong' to your character race.

Wow! Kudos to you all for these great playing suggestions. I just started a new game as a mage, so I'm going to use spells as much as possible, and try to acquire all the spell perks. This is going to be tough for me, having come from being an archer with Daedric bows, with all smithing perks and being able to enchant legendary dragon gear.

Not to mention selling goods at a high price to almost any vendor. I really miss my ton of "walking around" money where I could buy everything I wanted--including all the homes that can be purchased--even if I never used it. Now, especially as I'm only level 3, I have to make a decision: buy that potion or save it for a spell book!

I also like the idea of restricting fast travel, to maybe once per game session. I don't know that I could give up fast travel permanently. It just takes forever to walk, and I frequently wind up on the wrong side of the mountain! But I'll give it a shot.

I do this but I keep my departure weight under 100. I try to equip based on what I plan to encounter. Usually roll with a hunting bow (flame enchant), one dagger, Ghostblade (has a weight of 1), fur armor, a change of clothes (boots and a dress), a shield, one staff, some rings and necklaces (barter, warmth, and magic). I only carry two or three scrolls, food, and some key potions.

If at all possible I try to sleep 6 hours per day. It has made it a lot more interesting playing this character than my first one.

Every day i set myself a challenge like find a dragon or find dwemer ruins (still ahvent done that) do that and anyone finding skyrim boring do that its fun

Lately, I've been forcing myself to only carry what I might need for a trek. But, I find it very hard. I might NEED 39 healing potions, 22 restore stamina potions, 14 bottles of wine, 12 bowls of beef stew, and 11 cheese wheels. Oh, and some weapons. And a couple books to read.

Yeah, that one always hurts when I start a PC, especially after my first playthrough, where I had taken all the speech perks AND invested money with every merchant who would take it. Particularly with the bug that apparently added an extra '0' to the amount of extra gold one merchant got when I took one of those perks. Even when I was finding and making very high-end stuff, I could always find someone with enough cash to buy it, and it wasn't long before I was rolling in septims. I think I had close to two million by the time I retired that PC, I was actually taking everything I had that I wasn't going to carry and use (or that wasn't a unique trophy piece or Thane reward, that sort of thing) and making the rounds of the entire country and selling it all off just to see how much I ended up with.

Now I just started over and I'm constantly having to choose what purchase is most important and remembering to harvest my own ingredients and stuff. But I like it, it makes things interesting again.

I did this for my first (and only) character, though not because I wanted to limit myself. It simply seema like the best way to naturally improve the character, balancimg abilities to avoid falling behimd in one to oveepower another. My ranger took a perk in archery, than one-handed, than light armor, ect to avoid beimg deficient anywhere.

I mention this because my game is very challenging, even at level 32. True, I'm not a great combat player, but the challenge also comes from natural development imstead of power leveling the best perks.

I don't know how some people say Master is easy. I'm only a low level still but I'm finding Master challenging.

I play a pure melee warrior. Nord, Light Armor, Block, and One-handed. I don't use potions, magic, alchemy, any enchanted items, or any range attacks at all. I only use shouts as I'm role-playing as the Dragonborn.
I've learnt the tactics to be successful at dodging and not taking hits but when I do get hit I get hit hard. I die in 4 hits usually. Even a person with a bow kicks my butt. When I was low level I got 1HKO by a Falmer with a bow, even now they're nasty.

Dragons are a nightmare, since I have no range I spend more time waiting for them to come to me. When they do I get 5-10 slashes before I'm either nearly dead or the Dragon takes off.

I guess the reasons it's challenging for me is that I play for role-play and not for efficiency. I also limit/prevent myself from using certain playing styles/features which makes the game much harder. A double swing from a Frost Troll is an insta-kill. I'm still too weak to take one on as it heals faster than my damage I do haha. I'm around 20+ I think but I haven't played for a few weeks as I have been moving house.
Like I have said, I have learnt to dodge attacks to prevent dying and it works most of the time. I am quite weak and sometimes it gets tedious to kill someone when it takes over 30 hits, so I put a few spare perks into Smithing since I had nothing else to put perks into and I increased my weapon to superior which added like 6-8 more damage or something, which isn't a lot but makes killing slightly less longer. I don't level smithing often, usually to make some armor to try out for fun so it's only low.

I'm not abusing smithing as I don't want to ruin the experience or challenge, but that extra weapon damage has made the game less tedious without removing the challenge.