Hello,

When is a good time to stop the Main Quest, and start the side quests? In Oblivion, Captain Picard/the Emperor tells you from day one to save the world, so it's hard to just wander around picking nirnroots after that.

I want to avoid this moment of no-return in Skyrim. Could someone please tell me when I should jump off the main quest, while avoiding significant spoilers? I am at the point where the Greybeards call me to climb the mountain. I wouldn't mind restarting though. I thought about avoiding the quest where you go to Whiterun to call for help, however this would mean I couldn't learn or use shouts.

Thanks

I stopped right after I reached the top and talked to the Greybeards. They'll teach you a little more about how shouts work as well as upgrading your first shout and teaching you a new whirlwind sprint shout that will come in handy for getting out of the way of trouble.

When you are to head off to meet the Greybeards, in my opinion. Or just stop it at Riverwood; I think this Skyrim is a lot better at making a threat seem like it is near than Oblivion did. In Oblivion, it was already there when the game started; in Skyrim, the only dragon to have shown up is Alduin. So it can be taken that you did everything and then, when you finally warn Whiterun, it is a bit too late since the dragons are just arriving right when you bring the Dragon Stone to Whiterun.

I stopped after I went up the mountain to see the Greybeards. They sent you to go look in some ruins half-way across the world, and that seems like an okay time for your character to be all, "Okay, I'll get on that... ah, have to walk through five towns to get there... oh, hey, what's going on over here? Ah, bandits! Ruins! Hm, trouble in this little area... oo, nimroots!" before they eventually get around to ruin-searching.

The best time is probably never going and bothering the Jarl in Whiterun, though, or at least never giving the stone to the wizard. Then no dragons issues. Hm...

I stopped after returning the horn to the graybeards. Sort of the end of act 1 for me. Man, four days off work and 56 house of Skyrim. My tv needs arrest.

I stopped after I learned all of Unrelenting Force, and now I just focus on side-quests, it's put me to about 35 hours played.

First dragon kill and I was out of there! After the first dragon you can learn shouts and stuff so I thought that was a pretty decent time.

I'd be tempted never to warn the JArl, as it seems to be pretty well-spread news anyway. That was, as far as I can tell, dragons never spawn - and they arn't something I want to deal with while doing Faction quests.

As noted above, another good point would be returning the dragon stone. For anyone playing a character that isn't a 'hero' at first, then that would be a good time to go 'Uh, you want me to do into danger and grab this rock for you, that may not even be there anymore? kthxbai'.

Completing two quests after the training with the greybeards will unlock dragons to guard burial mounds across Skyrim. although you are still going to run into random dragons regardless.

Do you know if there is any chance of meeting a dragon before reporting to the Jarl? I haven't seen one yet, and i'm hoping not.

I think its best to finish the Act1 mainquest line. So go up the mountain, learn a bit more about shouts from greybeards, go find the Horn, meet someone (wont spoil name) and do that persons quest (killing a Dragon).

I find thats a good place to jump off as you have them learnt some more shouts through the main quets line and the person who you meet towars the end of Act1 is working on getting an invitation for you so RP wise its also a good time to jump off and do some sidequests etc.

Unrelenting Force is a savior, so I would recommend stopping after you bring the claw to the Greybeards.

That way you can just yell at people and knock them off the many mountains of Skyrim.

I accepted the invite and got owned badly on that quest part so I reloaded slightly before accepting the invite to go get some loot and skillz - so I agree that's a good point to break off, but for slightly different reasons!

Yeah, I think there are basically three good spots.

Want no dragons? Warn the Jarl, but upon being told to go get the Dragonstone for the nice (or, more bluntly, sarcastic) wizard, tell him politely you'll get on right on that and go off to do whatever else you want to do in the world. That should be no dragons... I think, and while it makes sense to give the news to the Jarl straight away, you don't owe him anything else. (The problem is you often have that stone from doing the Claw quest beforehand, and you can't drop/stash a quest object, so you'll have to sort of tab out of that conversation or just never go and chat about it with said wizard.)

Want some dragons? Go up to get your training from the Greybeards, but wander around rather then going straight to the horn. It is, as I noted before, pretty far from the mountain- if you were like me and rushed the main quest, that's a long way to walk. Getting distracted at the various towns and stuff around as you sorta head 'in that general direction' seems sensible.

Want even more dragons? I believe you get more spawns if you do 'wait' while the invitation is being gotten for you, and indeed that's a reasonable time to stop- you're waiting on anothers work.

I think I may have discovered another place that could make a decent stopping point, but those seem pretty good.

I wandered off after I unlocked the house in Whiterun. I've encountered two random dragons since then.

When you exit the starting dungeon, you can just run away from the guy you helped through (Stormcloak or Legion, depending on who you picked) and just ignore everything from there. There is nothing in the story at that point that points at you for being special at all. And then if you want to resume you can just talk to whoever you left in Riverrun sometime.

Best spot to jump off is either just before or just after seeing the Greybeards, imo. After probably makes a little more sense, but its *quite* the hike to get there, so you can do the "i got distracted!" excuse there too.

Rather than start a new thread i thought i'd revive this thread since it's somewhat relevant to my question...

I obtained the claw quest right off the bat and completed Bleak Falls Barrow before any other quests. I'm around 30 hours of exploring into the game and i'm kind of fed up with having to carry the dragonstone around everywhere as it weighs 25.

What are the repercussions of handing in the dragonstone? I know that it begins a dragon attack whether you speak to the Jarl afterwards or not (I've tried just leaving after giving the stone and the quest journal entry updated to head to such and such tower after a few mins out of town)

If i give him the stone and just avoid the first dragon fight will other dragons start to appear around the world?
If i fight and kill the dragon will dragons start spawning randomly around the world? will dragons appear in the various dragon dens or are they driven by a later quest?

i quite enjoy my non dragon infested world so far and while i have every intent of completing the main quest my character is still too bitter about being sent for execution to get involved at this time...