Hi

Am just about to embark on my first playthrough of Skyrim. I haven't really played many RPG's offline. Only ever really tasted WoW on the PC a few years back which was addictive. Anyway, I'm gravitating more towards RPG's now as they suit my pace of life much better these days.

So I've been spending the last few days on various blogs and forums to avoid common pitfalls when starting my first character, as I went through the trouble of respeccing in WoW which was a pain.

So I think my playstyle is definitely Ranged/Archer with magic. My choice of race is going to be a dark elf. Are there any pitfalls I should avoid early on in respect to perks in certain trees that won't be useful later on? At the moment I will be ocncentrating on Light Armor spec, complete archer spec and a lot of destruction spec. I'm eager to avoid nerfing my character or becoming an all-rounder in the later stages.

Lastly, regarding the skills like enchanting and alchemy - in Wow you had to find a trainer to become one first. Is it the same in Skyrim or do you have the ability to get all skills up to maximum by default? My playstyle is geared towards enchanting and smithing if this helps giving me some advice?

And thanks for any help. RPG's seem so vast and daunting to begin which is probably why I have often just passed the genre by.

Welcome to the forum!

I've also played WoW in the past and I think in some ways, the character progression couldn't be farther apart than night and day.

In WoW, most people try to raise their level as quickly as possible and then spend most of the game at their level cap. Most of the quests are a bit boring TBH. In Skyrim, I don't care at all about raising my level, and actually enjoy the lower levels more than higher levels. I don't craft items in order to "win"; rather I craft because I'm playing a tribal shaman who prides himself on concocting dangerous poisons, or a refugee from a savage land who worked as a swordsmith before coming to Skyrim, etc.

It's really more about exploring the world, talking with NPCs, joining factions, watching the story of your character unfold over the course of your playthrough. Everyone's experience is slightly different, and each character is the hero of a very different epic tale.

I have only one suggestion: Take your time with the game and don't join all the guilds with your first character.

You might want to start with doing just one or two of these faction questlines and/or the main quest with your first playthrough. Not only does this improve on the RP experience and help to solidify your character's unique history, but it also saves a lot of great content for future playthroughs.

For example, I had a chance to play four very different characters. My first character was a Dunmer kleptomaniac who would steal everything that wasn't nailed down. He ended up getting caught by guards and thrown in jail very frequently, in all of the Holds except Riften. I had to break out of many different prisons. Focused on stealth, pickpocketing, Alchemy (poison), some archery and the backstab perks. The stealth gameplay in Skyrim is a lot of fun, greatly improved from previous games in the series. I only did Thieves'; Guild faction questline and some smaller, quests as I traveled around the provinces. By the time I reached level 40, I had been playing over 200 hours and decided to start over with a new character. During that time I completed about 70% of the Thieves' Guild quests, collected a few shouts, explored a lot, met some companions, and that's about it.

My second character was an arrogant Nord barbarian who thought sneaking around, using ranged weapons, magic spells / enchanting, etc., was for cowards. You would never catch this guy reading dusty old tomes in a mage's college. No ranged attacks and no sneaking presented a significant challenge on Master difficulty, but it was a lot of fun. I focused almost exclusively on 2-handed, with a little bit of smithing. I put all my points into Stamina, no Health, no armor perks. I did the main quest, as well as the Stormcloaks and Companions questlines and by the time I finished I was at level 27 and had logged about 150 hours.

Third character was a Breton mage, focusing on Destruction and Conjuration, who didn't give a damn about the Civil War and would sooner die than hang out with sweaty warriors in the Companions. She researched the arcane arts and wore no weapons or armor. I got up to level 28 or 29 and I had completed only about 60% of the College of Winterhold, collected a few shouts and that's about it. That took around 180 hours, and I decided to start over and try a playthrough with some survival/hunger/hypothermia mods as well as mods that make the game more challenging at higher levels.

Now I'm playing an Argonian witch doctor who wears some cool looking (but weak) tribal Forsworn armor, focusing on Illusion and Conjuration, as well as throwing knives and throwing poisons (installed a mod for throwing weapons). I plan to complete the College of Winterhold questline with this character, collect some shouts and perhaps do the Bard's College. I never buy spell tomes from merchants, rather I use only the ones I find in dungeons. As a result, finding a spell tome is almost as much fun as finding a new dragon shout, so this enhances the exploration aspect.

At this point, I've already played several hundred hours and there is still a lot of content in the game I haven't even touched. Been saving the Dark Brotherhood for last, and look forward to joining with a Bosmer or Khajiit assassin character during my next playthrough, perhaps I will also complete the Imperial Legion or the Thieves' Guild questlines.

Don't complicate things. Just play!

Skyrim's systems are going to be new to you. While it's easy to see "Level" on screen, it takes some time to adapt to how they're applied. Unlike most games, leveling in Skyrim is done via skills. Once a skill levels, your overall level increases.

It's unfortunate, but many people focus on level, but it's clear the developers really didn't want this to be the focus. Instead, they wanted players to just run around and have fun.

The caveat is the perk system, which blows the balance out of whack, in my opinion. Perks are needed to upgrade skills or bonuses, so by design, this forces players to level up in order to get the skills to help archery (in your case).

It's flawed early, but once you hit about level 40-50 (depending on what you wish to do), you can chuck the perk system out the window.

There's a player online here (and forgive me for not remembering their username) who never goes beyond level 1. They've given their detail of this style of gameplay and it's rather fascinating. So much so, I may even try it.

Skyrim's open to you. What you do with it is now completely up to you. Heck, you don't even have to do any of the quests, if you don't want to. Just... play.

What he said. Just play the game! You don't have to plan or know anything about the game (unlike wow) to enjoy it and be good at it.

Welcome to Skyrim!

BootySweat covered just about everything, but I'd like to add (or perhaps emphasize) this:

Take your time. Focus on exploring, adventuring and losing yourself in the world, and don't worry too much about skills and powerful weapons/armor. Take it slow, take it easy. And in the blink of an eye, you'l have spent hundreds of hours playing!

You're new here http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

When a Guard ask you. "Wait I know you". Don't talk too them. It's a tarp.

best advice is to just play the game, but i do have one tip for you:

plan out your perks! before putting points somewhere, think if it is really necessary to put it there! as i started, i had lots of wasted perks, because i just lvled and used the point somewhere. in the end i often had missing perkpoints for important perks.

this is just something i like to do, but, role-play. basically what bootsweat said, play as the character, do what they would do.

p.s. prepare for the forum's different wars. as a dunmer you have become mine and some other argonian's mortal enemy (some people get into, others not so much, but it is all in the spirit of fun )

Avoid online walkthroughs- that's my biggest regret. I liked the game so much, and couldn't play enough at one time, that I spoiled a lot for me. Thankfully this was early on so once I took a break I forgot a lot. And something I never thought of before I started play was don't do all factions with one character. I never thought much about rping because of skyrims low consequence system, but it would have been nice to spread it all out instead of one majorly OP character. (he's still my favorite though- my original) have fun with the game! And maybe even get dawnguard already, just have it there so you can stumble across it

fear the butterflies