No I'm not just power leveling all the way to 50 because I am a power gamer. The character in question as already level 50, and got their the old fashioned way. Two things irritated me. 1. Every location is set to the first time you go in, and in most places enemies don't respawn. So I couldn't experience certain locations at higher levels. 2. I needed several of a certain dwarven artifact that tends to appear in higher level loot but not lower level.... and I had already did most of the dwarven ruins at lower levels. So I loaded save 001, and decided to get to 50 as quickly as possible.

So here were my goals.
1. Only level skills I would need to raise anyways.
2. Do not enter any dungeons, and if possible don't even discover them on the map.
3. Avoid starting any quests.

1. Being a mage I raised enchant, alchemy, and the schools of magic. Destruction raised naturally as I was out soul trapping creatures and collecting plants. Once enchant was 100 I made several suits of gear that raised alchemy and all the schools by 100%(0 cost spells) which made it easy to raise them all.... well except restoration, that was a pain even with 0 cost spells.
2. Accidently discovered a forsworn fort, but I did not go inside.
3. Some quests like joining the legion are impossible to avoid, that and quests couriers give you. Otherwise didn't start any new ones. Major drawback to this rule, going in the college starts the college quests, so I'm a level 50 mage without any expert or master level spells .

So did all that, just hit 50. Now I am going to go back to Helgen. Going to kill an animal on the way and dump everything I have found this far on the animal including my gold. Exceptions will be quest specific items, and things I would have found in Helgen so everything else will disapear. So I will be wearing my college robes with a small change. These are robes I bought unenchanted and then enchanted with fortify destruction instead of the novice robes. I'm a level 50 mage and my most powerful spell is fireball.... I need something to survive. So that's it, some robes that 'look' like the robes found in Helgen, and quest specific letters and such.

I'm going to fight my way through Helgen pretending the bandits are the Imperial soldiers and the moon is a dragon j/k. Then fight through Helgen Keep which the spiders do respawn. Then I will go to Riverwood and go from there.

Thoughts on my crazy experiment?

im waiting for beth to fix the follower leveling system before i start playing again

Well, I admire your dedication! I know I would never have the patience to avoid dungeons and just level doing random overworld hunting and doing crafting. It would drive me nuts not to go explore a cave I saw or anything.

I have been curious about respawning too. I thought places did not respawn, but they do, sometimes with different enemies (like Helgen being taken over by bandits). I have not gone back to a lot of places though - it does seem longer than Oblivion's 3 day respawn. I know named bosses don't respawn. ... sorry, I digress.

@son do - was that actually relevant to his post/topic? Also, can't you dismiss a follower and take a new one and have him or her leveled properly. Seems a viable work-around if you are not on PC. If you are on PC, you can fix the leveling yourself.

I heard cell resets were something rather high, like 30 days, but yes I actually found the game a bit lacking due to their attempt to cross over the Fallout and Oblivion mechanics. I think that the fallout mechanics alone would have been better, yes it would have disuaded me to adventure at first but I think adventure is something to be earned in an RPG.

Update us to your progress, I would for one would like to see how you find a mostly unexplored game at that level.

sorry my bad, i should have elaborated a bit more, what i was meant was I too wanted to level up ONLY in the 'outside' game-world so that followers wouldn't be 'fixed' at a low level when i find them eventually. But I'm level 30+ now and don't have the patience to reach level 50+ in just playing in the outside gameworld so im goiing to wait until the follower levelling is corrected (im on xbox)

*i shouldnt rush my posts *

I've been doin this too... kinda

I'm lvl 67 and havnt done many quests... in fact I just finaly started the thieves guild about 3 days ago and havent even met the Greybeards yet.

I typically dont go into a location unless I have a mission direct me there... so I pretty much still have the whole game in front of me, but I didnt hold back because of level locking... its just the way I tend to play.

Something I've been unclear on do the dungeons set their level when they are discovered or when you actually enter them. So far in the game I've avoided entering dungeons after discovering them and only going in when a quest directs me to. Once all the quests are done I had intended then to go back to any that are marked as Uncleared.

when you enter

better serving OP intensions would be some cheat to raise char's level to a specific value for this RP style, rather than boring his ass to death in the game.
i'm almost lvl40 and i've done quests and travelled randomly to reach my current level. not doing any of them would've taken all the interest away and boxed the game

Doesn't the level of the dungeon re-set if you clear it, and leave it fallow for 48 days? I'd personally have simply set up my character to be what I considered 'max' in the skills I wanted and play the game from start. That seems like what you're trying to simulate.

If you play on the PC you can just player.setlevel 50 every time you enter a new dungeon, and then player.setlevel .

I've restarted characters on the PC a few times, been level 54 from outside the escape sequence.
Rather easy on PC, just start a new game and console their skills back to previous level.
Only problems being things like the higher levelled enemies when you have no gear/spells, gear comes after a couple of dungeons/smithing.

Are you certain you need to join the College to buy spells from them or is the starting of the quest too much in itself?
I'd rather go stare at a wall for a few hours than play a mage with only adept level spells, so I would make an exception for Winterhold, but to each their own!

Ok just got home, haven't played yet.

Someone noted only going to a location when told to as part of a quest. I plan on doing that.


Actually not that bad. Restoration was a pain... I fought two frost trolls and let them punch me in the face over and over. Rest went up pretty quickly. Illusion was fun, I just calmed the guy in whiterun who will NOT shut up about Talos. Alchemy goes up based on the 'cost' of the new potion, so I just made VERY expensive potions.

Are you certain you need to join the College to buy spells from them or is the starting of the quest too much in itself?

Well to get in you have to show your magical talent to the gate keeper, which starts the college quests. Of course one thing to check.... the gate keeper is also the master of destruction. I will check if you can back out of the conversation about joining and then buy spells from her. I doubt it will work, but why not?
I will keep everyone updated, should be fun.

I was not able to back out of the join conversation, but once it was over and she had guided me to the gate she offered spells. I then bypassed the master wizard in front of the hall of elements and got the spells I wanted from the different trainers/members.

Ok made it through Helgen and Bleak Falls Barrow. I really hope those two locations always have easier enemies because it was pretty easy.

Helgen:
First dual cast fireball killed the three guys rushing me. All basic bandits. I did encounter a few thugs, plunderers, and marauders but now many. At one point I was fighting a more powerful bandit while an archer in a tower was constantly hitting me... but my health wasn't really going down. I had to check the settings at that point to make sure it was not on novice... nope he was just a basic bandit with a long bow.

So I went to riverwood and got the quest to go to Bleak Falls Barrow for the claw.

Bleak Falls Barrow:
Same deal with the bandits, most were easy. The small group just inside the building all died instantly to a fireball... kind of sad. The giant spider didn't level either, went down with ease. I expected the undead to give me problems so I summoned two flame atronachs. Most of the undead were basic or restless. Did encounter a few Wights, but no scourges or deathlords. It was really funny at one point; I set off a fire trap that blocked my path but my atronachs noticed something so they went on ahead through the trap. I could see them at the end of the hallway and three undead attacked them. Two died almost instantly, the flame atronachs didn't even attack them. They were basic undead and I guess the overlapping flame cloaks was to much for them. Third one was a bit stronger and killed one atronach just to die in the explosion.

On a side note: Did anyone notice that in an earlier patch atronachs were not immune to their own element... so a flame atronach could die to fire spells. I see it was fixed, but wondering if anyone else had that problem?

Thats because Bleakfalls is a "low level" dungeon and caps out pretty early, I did the same thing as you and quit my first play through when I first got the game, when I reached levell 30 I notice a sudden influx of Dwemer items everywhere and I so Started over, didn't do any quest, ran a bat to raise my level to 60 leaving the skills low and then trained appropriately. I can't deal with the hocus pocus never seen this until you reach a certain level mess to be honest.

I'm doing that right now with my level 81 character and I like the high end items but it's too easy.

Whats broken about it. I was under the understanding that folowers are locked at the level you obtain them at, and that they do not level with you. In order to get a higher level follower you just part ways and get a new one. If your calling that system broken, well it's not. That's by design. If you're talking about something else about them to be broken then please explain.
I just wait till I get to the desired level to get the desired follower I want. That way they are higher level.

I am puzzled. Why would you just train your skills to level 50 or what ever level you choose and then decide to "start" the game. I don't get it.

Two reasons:

A lot of the quest rewards in the game are leveled; IE: Nightingale Blade is significantly stronger if you get it when you're around level 40 than around level 10.

Also, going through content with all the perks from level 50 when you would of normally done it at level 10-20 will make you feel like a badass.

When it comes to followers I have heard both. One player on the PC said he used the console to check his followers level, and they were leveling... but they were about 5 levels lower than him at all times.

One way to check would be to use the college followers. You could tell if they were leveling based on the spells they use. I used the dunmer girl at level 30 and she was casting firebolt and summoning a frost atronach... I never did go back and use her again to see if it changed. Obviously this time I meet her she will be level 50 regardless.

Wow that's awsome to know that they do level with you. It's also good that they stay 5 levels lower or else they might hog up all the fun of killing stuff slowing the leveling process for your charactor. I'm currently using the mage college girl that changed me into different animals. ( arrrg what's her name) PS3 version so I can't check console. I've had her since level 11. I'm lvl 23 now. I'll just have to pay attention to what she casts. She does SEEM to be keeping up with me in fights, but I'm also giving her tons of staffs since I'm wood elf archer congurer. My bound bow spell recharges soul gems so I keep her staffs charged for free.

Give the mage follwer a bow, she likes those too.

So little bit further. Killed the first dragon.... pretty easy with spammed fireballs. He is named, but looking at the corpse it looked like a frost dragon. I did hit his corpse with a fireball which I regretted. His body went flying and landed near the mountains... well the soldiers wouldn't continue the 'your the dragonborn' conversation till they walked over to the corpse so that was a hike.

Since then I have been doing the bounty missions for Whiterun, you know, the 'looking for work, got any leads?' quests. Been fighting bandits and giants. Not to many problems. Most places I go the bandits are a mixture from weakest to strongest. A couple have given me slight problems but didn't get below half health or need health potions. One bandit mage was fun to watch. He was at the top of a structure raining down fireballs on everything. They kept knocking me around, but being a Dunmer with the atronach stone and atronach perk fire is the least of my concerns. Loot has been awesome. The Jarl of Whiterun gave me Ebony armor and an enchanted Deadric great axe.... which is surprising just because he still has a steel sword for his own use . Every thief is in full glass, and I find a good amount of Ebony and Glass stuff.

One very interesting thing... I found a random encounter, was a dead treasure hunter, and I'm not sure if this was meant for a level 1 or level 50 character. His treasure he was after, that I can now go after is an iron sword of arcing(good treasure at level 1)..... and in the note it mentions it is being guarded by a dragon priest(Level 50 enemy). Who in their right mind would fight a dragon priest for an iron sword that does a little shock damage? I mean, I'm going to kill him, but I'm going to kill him for his mask, not the sword.

Edit: Fudge, somehow I posted this in the wrong topic.