Skyrim Leveling Advice

NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
edited November 2011 in Gaming
Alright, so here's the deal. I'm really trying to give Skyrim a chance here, since I was frustrated I couldn't get into Oblivion in the way that everyone on earth seemed to be last time. I suppose this is a blessing and a curse, since I've read the leveling system has changed from Oblivion.

So, that in mind, I'm a bit confused as to the best way of going about leveling all my skills while still keeping the game enjoyable. I leveled up incorrectly in Oblivion, I think, to the point where any sort of physical altercation left me dead.

Is there an idiot's guide to leveling that any of you are currently using? I'm incredibly unfamiliar with tech trees, skillsets, etc. when it comes to creating characters. I tend to balance things out across the board and that just doesn't work well, methinks.

I currently have a level 5 wood-elf (lol) that I'm going to use mainly for spellcasting and thievery. (I always create some hand-to-hand combat hulking dude so I tried something different to see if that'd change how I experience the game this time around). What do from here?!

I've leveled, but saved all perks so far - I read on Reddit they're worth saving until you figure out wtf you're going to do.
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Comments

  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    At least you are level 5. I have 10 hours in to the game and still haven't decided on a race. I have been reading Elder Scrolls lore for 3 days.

    I want my Dragonborn to be perfect
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    And he will be... in hour 450, when you start your fourth character. :p
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    Snarkasm wrote:
    And he will be... in hour 450, when you start your fourth character. :p

    Too many awesome games coming up, this will be a one-play-through. Why it must be perfect
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    Hell, nobody said the fourth playthrough had to be this decade.

    To stop sidetracking, I'd be interested in this, too. Right now I'm just dumping perks into stealth and lockpicking, but I have no idea if that's actually how I should go. So much open-endedness.
  • JokkeJokke Bergen, Norway Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    Investing a little bit in lockpicking is always well spent, no matter what character you intend to be. There are a lot of locked doors and chests out there. Only exeption is if you intend to be a mage with door opening abilities. Ranged characters are all nice and good, but I think spending a little bit on one handed will reward itself. Sometimes you will find yourself in close quarters with strong opponents slashing at you before you can fire your second shot. You will also need to figure out what kind of armor you will be wearing, and stick to that. Want to be a sneaky thief, don't waste anything on heavy armor. I myself grew very fond of smithing, and put so much into it I'm starting to regret it now, as I really wish i could spend more on armor. Ah, well, lessons learned.
  • ZanthianZanthian Mitey Worrier Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    The Slow time while zoomed in perk for Archery is were it is at ;) Lets you get multiple shots in before the enemy reaches you.
  • FrenchieFrenchie Maryland
    edited November 2011
    I have to admit I kinda cheated to level. The guy who escorts you through the first cave, I stealthed around him during the bear phase for like 20 minutes to get my stealth to about 50. Other than that I am having trouble leveling Pickpocketing if anyone has any tips for that one
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    I'm leveling my combat skills/perks first. This means Destruction magic. If you're a thief/assassin, it's likely best to level the sneak attack bonuses and split stamina and HP. If you're a mage, increase your magicka first and get a companion to tank for you. Building a warrior is fairly straightforward as well. Split between HP and stamina and take offensive and defensive perks as needed.
    Early game lasts quite a long way in and you want to maintain early game power while keeping the power curve up into late game. I figure the first 16 levels are "early", the next 16 are "mid" where you can branch into utility (one-handed and heavy armor early, block and smithing mid, maybe enchanting toward late game and filling out your perk tree.)
    The freedom to do all the fun stuff and be ALL THE THINGS isn't as great in Skyrim. You can't be jack of all trades while still being the master of all like Oblivion. You have to be more focused with your perks and skill increases. However, you don't have to plan perfectly and train to get your +5, +5 and +1 (luck) like Oblivion. This basically means you can play and have fun without min/maxing as long as you don't try to be an assassin/mage/warrior who smiths and dabbles in alchemy while still being a super bad ass.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    An assassin/mage/warrior who smiths and dabbles in alchemy while still being a super bad ass.

    I see you've met Fatcat then ;D
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    Short of just stealing gold/keys/lockpicks (which have a 90% success rate if pickpocketing) ...how else can I level this skill?

    I'm hesitant to try to grab some dude's sword-of-eternal-awesomesauce out of its hilt if I've got a 60% success rate to do it. I know that the sword, being heavier, will level me quicker - but I don't want to risk pissing the guy off and having to either kill him/pay my bounty.

    Same with sneak...should I just crouch through town like a weirdo to speed this process up faster?
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    NiGHTS wrote:
    Same with sneak...should I just crouch through town like a weirdo to speed this process up faster?
    First, make sure you have the sign of the thief. Second, sneak is stupid simple to train. Go in a dungeon or town where you can get behind someone, crouch, face a corner, weigh down the forward key/put a rubber band around the control stick and go have lunch.

    Pickpocketing is much more dangerous/risky. You can save right before an attempt and restore to it if you fail or pick people's pockets while they sleep. Training that has always been tough. Steal light items for training, of course.

    My favorite pick pocketing was Jack Ben Imbel from Oblivion who had all his armor in his inventory. When he revealed himself to be a bad guy he changed into it and attacked you. He was also standing in the middle of a lit room. If you managed to steal it all off of him he would change into his underwear for the fight and make it a lot easier for you to cut him down.
  • FrenchieFrenchie Maryland
    edited November 2011
    Go in a dungeon or town where you can get behind someone, crouch, face a corner, weigh down the forward key/put a rubber band around the control stick and go have lunch.

    Planning on doing this later tonight, leaving computer on with auto-run behind a guard.
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    First, make sure you have the sign of the thief.

    Yeah, that much I picked up on when I started so that's good.
    Second, sneak is stupid simple to train. Go in a dungeon or town where you can get behind someone, crouch, face a corner, weigh down the forward key/put a rubber band around the control stick and go have lunch.

    Yeah, I kinda figured that'd be the solution. Ah well, I'll try to keep it real for the time being but I'm close to just doing that.
    Pickpocketing is much more dangerous/risky. You can save right before an attempt and restore to it if you fail or pick people's pockets while they sleep. Training that has always been tough. Steal light items for training, of course.

    Yeah, using the save/reload trick as well - bummer.
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    NiGHTS wrote:
    Yeah, using the save/reload trick as well - bummer.
    Or for immersion, find a good den of conjurers or bandits or something and sneak around in there and try to pickpocket them. If they get pissed, murder time!
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    I'd actually not thought of that... thanks!
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    NiGHTS wrote:
    I'd actually not thought of that... thanks!
    I think it was Fellglow Keep that I just went into and it was filled with novice mages. You could easily get your sneak on up in that mug.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    I see you've met Fatcat then ;D

    I burn little kids while drinking goats blood, so? :rarr:

    I am totally leveling sneak in a dungeon. 6x sword damage huzaah!
  • KoreishKoreish I'm a penguin, deal with it. KCMO Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    I thought it was 15X damage.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    Once you have the perk Assassin's Blade yes.

    I meant swords, post edited
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    I was a dumb and accidentally (?) leveled to 100 sneak overnight. Now if I try to use my points at all, I have to level up to 17, and while I can sneak like a mofo, the guy at the first word of power temple in Bleak Falls ends up being SUPER strong.

    I think I'll re-roll again and do it right this time.
  • MiracleManSMiracleManS Chambersburg, PA Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    fatcat wrote:
    Once you have the perk Assassin's Blade yes.

    I meant swords, post edited

    I thought that only applied to daggers?
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    Snarkasm wrote:
    I was a dumb and accidentally (?) leveled to 100 sneak overnight. Now if I try to use my points at all, I have to level up to 17, and while I can sneak like a mofo, the guy at the first word of power temple in Bleak Falls ends up being SUPER strong.

    I think I'll re-roll again and do it right this time.
    Now that you have really high sneak, though, you could go be an assassin or thief for a while. Go to Riften or Windhelm if you're interested.
  • FitzkriegFitzkrieg British Columbia
    edited November 2011
    Oh, there is discussion of Sneakliness in this thread?

    Well, I happen to have established myself as a rather effective thief/assassin in the world of Skyrim.

    A few things to note if you want to be an epic sneaking guy:

    1) The Assassin's Blade perk is your friend. It turns the formerly almost-useless daggers in to arguably the most damaging single-hit weapon in the game. It is available at 50 Sneak, so get to sneaking.

    2) After joining the Dark Brotherhood (the questline to do so starts in Windhelm, and that's all I'm saying) you will recieve the Shrouded Armor. The best part about the Shrouded Armor is the gloves, which double your backstab damage. Even better, this stacks with Assassin's Blade, causing your dagger-based sneak attacks to do 30x damage instead of 15. Just to give you an idea of how powerful this is, I haven't actually run across anything I can't kill in one hit with this set-up.

    In case light armor isn't your thing (or if you're a mage) there is a set of Shrouded Robes on a shelf in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary that has different effects overall, but the Hand Wraps do basically the same thing as the Gloves. Taking them isn't counted as stealing, so feel free to grab 'em, if only to have more options.

    3) Now that you're decked out like a boss, you're going to want one more important thing. There is a Word Wall on a mountain to the East-North-East of Whiterun (the name of the location is 'Shearpoint') where you will learn all three words of the 'Throw Voice' Dragon Shout.

    This shout, when used, will create a noise at the point which your reticule is aimed, causing hostiles to go and check it out (assuming you're undetected). This, of course, leaves their backs wide open for a swift 30x damage shank out of nowhere. What's particularly good about this shout is that the manner in which it gets stronger takes form in a reduced cooldown time (30s at Level 1, 15s at Level 2, 5s at Level 3), and because you get all three words at once, you can upgrade it fairly quickly.

    Those are the basics of what I have formed my character around, I'm currently level 29 and swimming in gold due to high-paying Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood activity. Life is goooood.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    I was planning on being a thief and assassin, I just couldn't go that unnaturally to level 17 without really screwing myself up.

    Doing well this time.
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    Snarkasm wrote:
    I was planning on being a thief and assassin, I just couldn't go that unnaturally to level 17 without really screwing myself up.

    Doing well this time.
    Did you re-roll?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited November 2011
    No, just restored to a save before I left it to level up overnight. Now I'm level 6 or something and was able to get through Bleak Falls much better. I'm organically back to 56 or so sneak now, much better.
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    Snarkasm wrote:
    No, just restored to a save before I left it to level up overnight. Now I'm level 6 or something and was able to get through Bleak Falls much better. I'm organically back to 56 or so sneak now, much better.
    So now you can level one handed, alchemy or enchanting. Assassin's should totally have poisoned daggers enchanted with weakness to poison, right?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2011
    You'll be better prepared to level up naturally using skills as you normally would. You'll be better balanced and prepared to take on whatever it is you are facing. If you just spam a skill like sneak to level it up quick. You'll have a much harder time when it comes to combat in particular.

    Past versions of the game your skills effected your stats so level was much more strategic. In Skyrim this has been fixed. Power leveling is actually a bit of a disadvantage now. The only thing to really kind of plan out is how you spend your perks. You need to think a bit a head. It's far better to specialize perk trees then just randomly spend wherever. The game caps at level 70 (all skills at 100) so that mean you only have a max of 70 perks of a potential 250 options.
  • I-need-a-better-nameI-need-a-better-name Austin Member
    edited November 2011
    kryyst wrote:
    The game caps at level 70 (all skills at 100) so that mean you only have a max of 70 perks of a potential 250 options.
    And unlike Oblivion where you first leveled Endurance (due to the way HP was calculated) then trained your magic or attack while ignoring worthless skills and stats (personality, athletics, acrobatics, etc.) in Skyrim each tree has interesting perks that are tempting as hell and actually needed. Try to enchant something without the perks and see what I mean. It's both frustrating and exhilarating at the same time because you have to play a different kind of smart. Rather than focusing on skill ups you focus on smart use of perks.

    Yes, I did lay in bed trying to sleep while thinking of how to best level my dark elf, Primera. And yes, I did wake up this morning thinking of how best to level my dark elf, Primera.
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