Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[rk47]

It's not grabbing me.

I'm worried.

Stick to a build and pick a faction quest to start with. I agree, the sandbox aspect is really, really aimless. But I find it great when you start a new char, mentally select the skills and type of character you want to play and hunt down the specific faction to be a part of. I completed my Thieves Guild quest line with a fresh Argonian assassin who dispatch targets with poisoned arrows and was happier than the Nord who can do anything and everything with no flaw.

[Falconeer]

More on Lydia and the followers.
On my way to meet the Greybeards and a Frost Troll appears. Being overconfident I engage him only to realize that he's devastating me like nothing else ever did so far. Granted, I?m only level 7. Lydia, armed with a 2handed axe of burning dents the troll's HP but gets ruined in 10 seconds. I realize that it's better to haul ass and I start descending the mountain when I remember about Lydia and all the valuables she's carrying. So I go back not sure if she's alive or dead, and I see her galloping towards me and the chasing troll, only to engage it again and bend her knee again. I decide that I have to find a way to drive the troll somewhere away from Lydia, so she can recover and I can then backpedal, gather her, and leave together, but things don't go so well, she keeps coming after us, taking a slam on her face, bending her knee, rinse repeat. After 5 minutes like this, I'm still running away from the troll while waiting for Lydia to reappear, as usual, after a couple of mountain corners, but this time she's late, and when I try to go back to where I thought she was I can't find her and I then proceed to go to talk to the Greybeards thinking she will reappear by my side next time I'll teleport to a city. Mind, I tried all I could to kill the troll, but no matter how much I parried, bashed, powercharged, I couldn't take its hits and I couldn't bring his life under 80%.

So I teleport back to Ivarstead, and still no Lydia. I probably have to get used to the idea that she's dead, and that my valuables are still up there with the Frost Troll. Desperate about my stuff, and sad for the loss of the silent minion, I suddenly have an idea! Teleport back to Whiterun, go back to the inn where I beat that big gurl like a sack, and ask her if she wants to join me. "What are we waiting for?" she says. And off we go, to the mountains and to my almost lost fortune. Just before we leave I make sure she has a mule-sized backpack, so imagine my surprise when I realize she has a smithing ring +12% and they keys to her house, which will prove interesting later I'm sure. That's lovely, really. But now to my stuff!

So we hike back to the hated Frost Troll hoping to find Lydia's corpse, and after a while there she is. Lying in the snow, flat as a rug, loaded like a piggy bank. We pay our respects and then proceed to pillage her. So, mission accomplished, but before we go I am curious to see how my new sister Uthgerd the Unbroken fares against the Frost Troll. So far she's been silent, mysterious and slow (am I crazy or she is slower at following my horse than Lydia?), and it's time to see what was all that boasting about being "unbroken". There's a Frost Troll Uthgerd, show me whatcha got. And she totally does...

We charge the Frost Troll, actually it charges us, and Uthgerd swiches to the same Two Handed Axe of Burning that didn't save Lydia's life, and hacks at the Troll as a butcher at her chunk of meat. And in three, maybe four hits, the Frost Troll is on the ground, dead and deader.

Whoa.

And this is the woman I won a brawl against? And follows me wherever I go? Now I'm scared to fall asleep...

[rk47]

If you look at their default gear, you can probably deduce Lydia is a One Hand Weapon Style while Violent Woman is 2 Handed Specialized.

[tmp]

More on Lydia and the followers.
On my way to meet the Greybeards and a Frost Troll appears. Being overconfident I engage him only to realize that he's devastating me like nothing else ever did so far.

Hah. That guy surprised me too. Repeatedly. I have finally cheated with the Nord scream just to show him who's the boss... sort of.

(i told Lydia to go back home before i started the climb because it seemed more dramatic that way. Well, when i ran into the troll it did get dramatic, alright)

Then it turned out that reading the first plate at the bottom of the stairs gives you a 24-hour 'animals and creatures won't attack you' buff. Which of course i overlooked on my way up.

So at least by the time i got the buff i knew what it'd be good for...

[Falconeer]

If you look at their default gear, you can probably deduce Lydia is a One Hand Weapon Style while Violent Woman is 2 Handed Specialized.

But I never told Lydia to use the 2 handed axe. It was her idea, and apparently not a good one. RIP.

[Ingmar]

They'lll equip the highest damage thing regardless of what their skills are, but yeah Lydia is much much more effective with a 1h/shield combo. She shield stuns etc.

[NowhereMan]

Although that can be a pain in the ass when you've looted a load of 2H weapons and need your mule to carry them since she'll auto-equip them and ditch what she's good with.

[lamaros]

I dunno what all you people are looting crap like that for? I've got 100s of potions and gems and other high value shit I've never sold filling up chests in my house, and I have about 65k gold on my person.

What do you all spending gold on that you need to make a companion mule for you?

[ShenMolo]

Concerning Hired Thugs

I'm playing a new human hating thief/assassin wood elf who, upon reaching Riverwood after escaping Helgen, promptly robbed the place blind. During the course of my depredations, I had to kill Orgnar, the innkeeper at The Sleeping Giant. This led to a cat-and-mouse chase with Delphine on my ass half way to Whiterun.

During my next visit to Riverwood (and after being arrested and all my loot confiscated in Whiterun), Orgnar was still dead, and Delphine was on one of her forays, so I couldn't get a room at the Inn (stayed with Gerdur & Hod).

Also I was attacked by 2 separate waves of Hired Thugs while in Riverwood, who had been hired by Hilde, the old hag who is screaming about dragons when you first see her.

[NowhereMan]

I dunno what all you people are looting crap like that for? I've got 100s of potions and gems and other high value shit I've never sold filling up chests in my house, and I have about 65k gold on my person.

What do you all spending gold on that you need to make a companion mule for you?

Usually buying enchanted crap from vendors to disenchant because I like that effect. Also because I keep planning to properly skill up enchanting and feel I will need to load up on soul gems beforehand.

And because why would you leave potentially valuable loot behind? Some of that stuff is worth almost 50 gold.

[Lantyssa]

Fellow hoarders, unite!

Just keep your hands off my stuff.

[Falconeer]

I dunno what all you people are looting crap like that for? I've got 100s of potions and gems and other high value shit I've never sold filling up chests in my house, and I have about 65k gold on my person.

What do you all spending gold on that you need to make a companion mule for you?

You have to understand that I have 3000 gold total, I am only level 8, and I don't have a house yet. So I am still in that phase where I have to loot as much as I can and then find vendors that can give me some of their bucks. Which are not that many. If I am poor, they are all poorer, which is a mess. House is a goddamn 10k.

[MuffinMan]

The first house in Whiterun should be 5k.

[Murgos]

One of the things you need to know about the companion followers is that they don't level with you.  I guess Bethsoft thought that they would be too powerful?  Or, it's an oversight.  Anyway, they are level locked by the scaling system when you meet them, so if you weren't a neurotic who went and visited every above ground zone in the game at lvl 1 you should get a new companion when you get to a new area when the old one is showing a lack of keeping up.

So, yeah, if you pick up Lydia at lvl 7 then she probably isn't going to be much help by level 15. There are lots of companions available and lots of zones to get them from so I doubt if it will be an issue for most rational people.

IF you are absolutely stuck on having one companion stay with you the whole game there is a way to force the level scaling system to re-initialize the companion.

[koro]

The first house in Whiterun should be 5k.

Plus another 1.2k in upgrades to make it not suck, and you still need a mod to get an enchanting table in it.

[CaptainNapkin]

I picked up Lydia around level 5 or less and in my mid 30's still use her. Rarely need to summon my dremora unless there's an insane number of enemies and I need a 2nd tank since I'm a full caster in cloth. I'm not seeing the companion level issue, but if it does work that way I'm afraid to see how powerful a new companion would be. This at expert setting as well. So I guess I'm happy they don't level with me if that's the case.

[koro]

My first playthrough had me picking up Lydia at around that level as well. If I go back to my house in Whiterun, she's sitting there at 180 HP. She will take a knee after literally a single hit from anything I face in my mid-30s.

[lamaros]

Started doing the main quest with my cat assassin but it didn't feel right. Decided to retire him for the moment, rich bastard has enough on his plate running the thieves guild, dark brotherhood and companions.

Time to give this Mage thing a go with a high elf. War paint is on and I'm ready to undermine the empire from within it's borders.

[ShenMolo]

I think I noticed the companion - leveling issue recently when I dismissed Lydia and picked up Mercurio. I was amazed at his ability to blast down opponents (compared to Lydia in the mid-teens, where she seemed to just act as a distraction for mobs). I upped the difficulty from Expert to Master because he was wiping out stuff with a couple of casts.

[rk47]

He would level up to Master as well.
Speaking of gold - what is it for? Raising skills that are too slow to train up yourself. Try getting pickpocket to 50 manually and suffer.
Archery suffers from the same issue. Past rank 50 training, the cost starts to mount up. Around 2-4k per point.

Finished the civil war side content. Lol. Hollow as fuck.

[Sky]

Fellow hoarders, unite!

I will admit to hacking myself to a 1000 weight limit....which still meant two trips for a dwarven dungeon....I wish the game was a bit more friendly for decorating ala EQ2 at least, where you can rotate the item on the cursor to place it. I've got a couple cool things but it's such a pita to place them and so limited...and then you walk past and it goes flying anyway.

My favorite item in the game so far is a butterfly in a jar.

[CaptainNapkin]

My first playthrough had me picking up Lydia at around that level as well. If I go back to my house in Whiterun, she's sitting there at 180 HP. She will take a knee after literally a single hit from anything I face in my mid-30s.

How do I check her stats like HP?

[koro]

My first playthrough had me picking up Lydia at around that level as well. If I go back to my house in Whiterun, she's sitting there at 180 HP. She will take a knee after literally a single hit from anything I face in my mid-30s.

How do I check her stats like HP?

If you're on the PC, open the console and click her. If something other than A2C94 shows as the current console target, mousewheel a bit until it does. Then use "getav health" to find her health. Her other skill values can be found by replacing "health" with a skill, like "onehanded" or "heavyarmor".

Also, for anyone who likes TES books:

http://capane.us/2011/11/24/dovahkiin-gutenberg/

[Arinon]

Speaking of gold - what is it for? Raising skills that are too slow to train up yourself. Try getting pickpocket to 50 manually and suffer.
Archery suffers from the same issue. Past rank 50 training, the cost starts to mount up. Around 2-4k per point.

Haven't tried it myself but supposedly for any trainer that can become a follower you can recover the gold you just spent on training from their inventory.  Basically free training.  Once you've done the Companions stuff most of them will join you and they train all sorts of combat stuff.  Aela the Huntress trains Archery I know.

[Quinton]

Fellow hoarders, unite!

I will admit to hacking myself to a 1000 weight limit....which still meant two trips for a dwarven dungeon....I wish the game was a bit more friendly for decorating ala EQ2 at least, where you can rotate the item on the cursor to place it. I've got a couple cool things but it's such a pita to place them and so limited...and then you walk past and it goes flying anyway.

My favorite item in the game so far is a butterfly in a jar.

My butterfly-in-a-jar is on a shelf next to my bee-in-a-jar and a glowly dwarven gyro dealie.

I too wish it was a bit easier to decorate my house with the crazy junk I collect from these dungeons.

[Phred]

I bought a dog for ~500 gold. Then as I was leaving the stables where I had just purchased the mutt, three bounty-hunters appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. The dog protected me with his life until I could headshot the three bastards with arrows. Literally. He died while doing it. It was a 20 second short friendship, but I will always remember him. Whatever I was going to name him, that's the name that I will never forget. Hypothetically speaking.

I bought that damn dog 4 times. Never made it through one dungeon crawl.

[tmp]

The free dog for the daedra quest seems pretty much immortal -- i can't even see his health bar, and he tanked multiple enemies and bosses (including guys that could 2-3 shot me)

Still doesn't make up for how utterly annoying it is, though.

[Ingmar]

The regular storebought dog doesn't actually die? He falls down just like a human companion, but he's also bugged so he won't stand up and use his regular animations when it happens, until I fast travel.

[ShenMolo]

I used the console to make Lydia match my level and she is a tanking machine!

[Ingmar]

I actually haven't noticed her not keeping up at level 40ish (I got her at probably 5 or so) but I've been upgrading her armor and weapons. Also I kill most stuff before it gets to us. I'll have to try one of the other housecarls when I actually get to 100k and start buying the houses to get them.

[CaptainNapkin]

Thanks for console command. Lydia is sitting at 217 HP, but I have also been consistently upgrading her armor and weapons with new stuff as I get it. She's currently in Ebony with +Health, +Health Regen enchants and some fire resist to help aid against her fireball tossing boss. She alternates between Ebony bow and Ebony 2hander with fire damage on the 2hander. I'm about 3 points from maxing my enchanting at which point I'll try to retool all my gear and hers.

[sinij]

By now I  got to level 20 in Skyrim, and I have to say that I do not enjoy combat _at all_. I play 2-handed heavy plate warrior and all combat so far is ether kill someone right away with sprint-power attack or die nearly instantly to power attacks or get blown up by magic. I played mount and blade extensively, and this combat model is not novel to me. By now I am so sick and tired of random death that I turned game difficulty to novice, but they are still happening. Every dungeon is _multiple_ reloads until you learn where every enemy located and execute it perfectly, and when you do execute it perfectly you take almost no damage outside of boss fight.

I am very close to diching this character and starting over with rogue or mage.

[lamaros]

Huh? My light armor assassin with dual swords could go toe to toe with most guys, without heavy armor or the ability to block. I don't get it? Have you not put level ups in to health?

[CaptainNapkin]

Yeah that makes no sense, it's like you're playing a different game. Maybe pick up some type of range skill and soften them up first? I'm a mage with 0 armor and typically never bother casting mage armor and I still don't die like that. Are you using a companion to help draw aggro or anything?

[Flinky]

Speaking of gold - what is it for? Raising skills that are too slow to train up yourself. Try getting pickpocket to 50 manually and suffer.

Strange. For my character, Pickpocket hit 100 while all other skills bar Stealth were still in the 30's or 40's. It seems to be tied to the value of the items you take. I was walking up to the richest looking person I could see, taking all their jewellery, gaining 1-2 points of Pickpocket (even at 80+ skill range) off that one person and going to find the next.

Then again the first two enchanted items I found were both +Pickpocket jewellery which meant I only had a less than 90% success chance on items over 900 gold. Even with just a single point in the base perk.