For the first time I made character who does not sneak, smith, enchant, or use alchemy. It is very fun. Dragons are as epic as they should be. Even common enemies can kill you if you are not careful. Things like frost trolls are a menace. I am a 1H warrior perking only 1H, block, heavy armor, and archery. I suggest this to anyone who finds the game gets too easy at high levels - even on master. I am on expert difficulty and level 25. If anything, the game is getting harder as I level up.

Anyone do anything similar?

Yup I play a monk of Arkay. Use only alteration, restoration, one hand, with minor destruction and illusion. It's tough playing a melee charter who wears robes, especially on master lvl. But it's rewarding and challenging.

Well, that's depressing. I've just started playing a similar build, and was hoping to be reasonably badass. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

I have played the game without crafting since I realized just how OP it is on my first character, but sneaking is my main skill... Maybe because my character is a Nightblade and being a sneaky thief/assassin without using sneak kinds of break the concept badly.

Still not sure if I should start leveling alchemy tho, but guess that alone with the poisons only isn't too bad, but time will tell.

Wow, doing that on master must be very tough. I should try that next.

It's not easy but restoration is very useful for both the healing & wards. If you stack it with Mage armour you can gave 380 armour and when I hit 100 alteration I can get the dragon hide (avoid 80% of damage). So it's not as hard as you think, plus you get to look a bad [censored] going toe to toe with deathlords wearing only orange robes!