Tidings fellow heroes from the ever numerous Skyrims.

The experience of the North is not enticing me. Therefore I decided to branch into something different and more connected to Role Playing.

I desire to walk the Swordsman's steps.

To pursue this aim I want to ask thou fellow adventurers what do you judge best. I thought of being clad just in clothes and carry nothing but a sword. I wish to know if I will be able to survive living through this trade. 'Tis important to imagine what racial and mental status should my Swordsman vehemently portray.

In this, I shall pass the question to thou and thus await merry answers.

You'd better invest heavily in block.

Some decent running shoes wouldn't hurt either.

it's possible, but I would consult you to take some followers with you

What difficulty level do you plan on playing on?

I took great interest in all of your answers.

Concerning the difficulty, mostly Expert.

As to blocking: I don't want a shield.

No worries. You can still block with just the one-handed sword. Or, surprisingly enough, a torch.

The issue with Skyrim is that the versatility it offers is good but somewhat limiting.

Good running shoes, with that thou mean I should move "strategically and hastefully" both in and out of combat?

What shield-brother or sister would suit me best? What ideals and race should I take arms for?

Yeah I did a dead is dead character like that expert difficulty made it to level 27. Have fun, I miss that scoundrel.

He made good use of sneak though, in case you were looking for some guidance. But he didn't use daggers so none of that stuff.

Verily.

Tell me, what weapon did he favoured? What meaning does "Dead is dead" carry?

Much obliged mate.

My good sir DID in truth means that you shall play this fantasy as If it were reality. When you die, dead you shall stay.

That is rather appalling, I need to be extremely careful.

I am starting to formulate my swordsman in my core, what about the race and ideals?

If you plan on wearing cloth then I would recommend building alteration as it can sort of act like a poor mans unarmored skill. Bottom line, you need some armor value especially for boss fights or you can be killed in one hit even if you have lots of hit points.

Would the Alteration craft be enough to mantain a good defense? I was partially hoping that it wouldn't be necessary to recur to any form of spells.

If you are focused on being human, then the Adrenaline Rush ability of the Redguards would be very useful in tougher fights, giving you the ability to use constant power-attacks for a short space of time.
You could play Breton either, and with the the Dragonskin racial, combined with the Atronach stone, will make you immune to magic for a short time every day.

Argonian could be useful, Histskin has bought me back from the brink of death many times, and sometimes it's nice to play something a little different

If you're not concerned with specials, then just go with the race that you most like the look of, trust me, the bonuses mean clsoe to nothing past level 50 for most builds.
If you are concerned with specials, then just pick your average warrio race, Nord, Redguard, Orc, along with the Lord stone, and you should have more then enough damage output as well as defence, to keep going.

Something emerged in my mind:

To keep it plain, without spells and bonuses, standing against tougher opponents with mere clothes, would the Apprentice difficulty turn out to be very easy?

As a lazy fellow, I would make it a little easier on myself. I would play a normal "soldier" whose early career includes the use of armor and other typical skills upon which a soldier would focus. Then, after building up my sword arm and developing some complementary skills from behind the safety of my armor and shield shell, I would eventually emerge, butterfly style, shedding those cumbersome trappings and walking unhindered and undaunted, confident in the strength and skill of my sword arm alone.

Oh... and I would do it as an Imperial.

You just have to RP that your character has good evasion, and since there is no unarmored skill in the game to represent this you're basically forced to use alteration. The master level alteration shield spell deflects 80% of physical damage, so its pretty good once you get there. Until you get that spell just use the oakflesh/stone/ebony line and put a few points into the tree to make them better, you can get up to 300+ armor with those and the mana cost isn't that bad so no need to put many level ups into mana.

Your point is somewhat clear to me. Carry armour for some time, not adapting or evolving with it but doing so with the sword. Until no enemy could withstand blade strikes.

I recommend doing it as somewhat of a spell-sword.

You don't need conjuration and destruction or even illusion

But Alteration is a must if you want to survive in cloth.

Restoration will also give yield you GREAT results.

Unfortunately, there is no "unequip" hotkey... so to unequip a spell and block with your sword you'll need to pull up the favorites list and manually unequip your left hand (you can just pull left trigger, or hit left hand mouse button, twice on the first spell highlighted)

That's the biggest drawback of this build.... I'd recommend keeping your favorites list as short as possible so you only equip spells to cast it real quick, and then unequip to fight with a 1hand sword better.

The destro cloak spells are quite nice additions to this build if you feel like going for it... they don't benefit from the dmg+ perks in destro, so there is no need to perk into destro at all if all you want are the cloak spells.

In Resto.... Regen & Respite are key. This will let you quickly refill your stamina mid fight. I actually keep fast heal or close wounds in my off-hand just because of respite actually.

Alteration is your survival tree. Mage Armor will let you get up to 300 armor with Ebony Flesh... which is less than you'd have with 5/5 armor skill and decent armor. You're also vulnerable to physical attacks any time your spell is down, adding another vulnerability to your character. I find this vulnerability exciting personally. The magic resistance perks give you a particular strength as well in taking out mages.

Instead of blocking with a 1-hand sword... may I recommend dual-wielding? You can more easily swap back and forth between off-hand weapon and heal (refill that stam bar!) and it makes you more offensive and more squishy...

You might also want to consider Enchanting since enchanted cloth is pretty rare, the quality of enchantments are often weak, and usually geared to mage chracaters rather than swordsmen. Considering expert difficulty, I'd recommend it, but you can pass it for more challenge if you want.

Your advice is making my perception more fluid. I might really have to make use of Alteration. As for dual wielding I will probably reject it.

Returning to the difficulty question: Playing clad in clothes and gripping a sword, without magic, in Apprentice difficulty would be too simple?

No armor, and no alteration, means you'll get killed by higher level 2handed enemies outright.... You need SOME form of damage reduction.

About the dual-wield: I tacked it onto my character after a while... actually, his build is all kinds of jacked TBH... but it's only 3 perks to max dual-wielding and it can be fun at times... it can always be something you add later if you deem you want it... It does add to your offensive capability and offhanding a paralyze dagger can be rather effective.

I understand kind sir.