I'm not sure if there's an easy answer to this, but what's a good level to stop, as far as not feeling ridiculously overpowered goes? Assuming someone is playing expert or master difficulty? I kind of want to spread more perks around, but I don't want to play god mode.

below 45 sadly you can't stop leveling I wish they did add that as a option now that I think of it..

Depends on your build I imagine. I became a walking explosion around the mid 30s.

I wonder if it'd help if I intentionally gimped my characters. Like mix heavy and light armor pieces, and of course.. avoid fortify smithing/enchanting (I already try to do that with some weapons).

i think enemies stop levelling with you at level 50. thats why its a 'soft' cap.

Yeah, but you can already kill things without too much difficulty before that.. That's kind of what I meant by what would be the practical level cap. Couldn't think of a better word for it.

Only some enemies obey the "soft cap" mostly quest related;

Most high level stuff goes far beyond the "soft cap" that's why you get so many complaints dead thrall stops working if you keep leveling.

Leveled items stops at 46 and some enemies scale to 50. If you refrain from using alchemy and smithing, the game can be quite challenging even if you got yourself decent equipment (but standard - ignore these two crafting skills as they were never implemented into the game)

Game is balanced around a max level 50 character the cap though is much higher, and seeing as making your character a walking death machine is easy to do. You just got to find your own happy medium with things.

nope they keep leveling up with you its my first play through and im on master and there still crazy hard im around lvl 54 and still fighting for every square inch of ground id be screwed if it wasent for the rose staff that summands a deadra
(nont know if i spelled that right but i dont really care so drop dead grammar and spell Nazis)

in my opinion it's best to stop and finish the game around 45-50 and start another character, clearly not doing ALL quests, but only those fitted for your char type, like mage guild for mage, thieves guild for thief and so on.
I only used one overpowered char, the first, but after 50 all quests were mostly jokes even at master level and doing the mages college and thieves guild quests with a two handed warrior with heavy armor was mostly ridiculous.

Yeah...

My character is a light armored warrior/thief. I guess there's more convergence with Thieves Guild and Companions (and thankfully, the companions questline isn't very long).

One problem might be that I'm dual wielding. It's too good. Perhaps I'll start training a shield late game, just to help tone it down a bit.

It really depends on how you spend your perks and where you put points in Health/Magicka/Stamina.

Stacking health is probably one of the worst things to do in regards to difficulty, so would using enchanting and smithing simultaneously.

I go with a one or the other approach, and try not to play archers that use sneak. Dual-wielding can be spammy, but try and take that dagger out of your left hand and mix up some weapons. Try two-handed weapons, try shield charge if you don't want to do that. Shield charge is easily the most underappreciated skill in the game, it is simply awesome.

For all the talk about smithing/enchanting being OP'd... archery + sneak = Megadeath.

Then there is Shield Charge, up there on a whole other level.

What make you powerfull is not your level, but where you put your perk. Since you are a warrior/thief, if you take perk in lockpick, pickpocket, speech, alchemy, sneak, and very few onehanded and light armor perk, the game will be more difficult.

If you role play a specif kind of character like a mage or a warrior the practical level cap is probably in the high fifites. To advance beyond this level you will have to use and increase the skills that don't match with your character. For example a mage will have to start killing stuff with two handed and using heavy armor. I am currently grinding out the seventies by having to use all of the skills that have nothing to do with how my character developed. Does that make sense? Try being a noob mage on master in the seventies with no magic perks when you got to the seventies by being a warrior. It svcks. I am only continuing froma sense of completion.

It doesn't have much to do with "level"... in fact your character level is a detriment to your character's strength, not a bonus. Players become overpowered not by level but by perk selection. If you're tired of being overpowered, limit yourself to assigning only 40 perks.

With every TES game, there comes a character level where the game becomes easy. I view it as a reward for developing my character. However I do agree that it is nice to have a challenge again.

So, do what I have done in every TES game since Battlespire, use weak weapons and armor at higher character levels, or use Armor and Weapons that are not on your base build. Been playing 2 Handed? Go One Handed. Been using Light Armor, then use Heavy Armor. It brings back the challenge.

The question then becomes...how many hours did you put into a character to level him to about 43-45? Hundreds, right? Unless you were powerlevelling. Naturally levelling to that point takes a lot of game time. It's natural you're going to become very strong and enemies very easy after putting in hundreds of hours.

Please don't forget that both Morrowind and Oblivion were cakewalks once you'd maxed out a few skills until the expansions added new challenges for that level cap. Skyrim right now is designed for levelling characters. The expansions will be designed for level capped characters.