I was wondering if I had missed something about Niv the last time you mentioned her. Now I see I did not!

Why don't you just play dragon-free games with characters like her? It is not hard, all you have to do is not deliver the dragonstone to Farengar.

I bet that dog did sell her out to the city guard! Its a sad day when a wood elf cannot even trust an animal to keep from snitching. Shakti is also doing the TG questline. She will make a mental note not to trust any goat or chicken to keep her secrets...

So now she's a vampire? Ick. Poor Niv. At least as I understand it, Dawnguard makes it very easy to play a vampire character. I believe sunlight does not bother you, and no one will attack you because of it.

Wow, nice in-depth writing there, Grits. My update is not so in-depth tonight. Not much really new to report.


-------------------------------------------------------------
Tirdas, 12:09 pm, 5th of Second Seed

The Mighty Khahkhayre has discovered a new village (new to him and also me) called Morthal. He and Shadow stumbled into the place after raiding a vampire's lair nearby. As they walked into town, a couple of the villagers vied for Khahkhayre's attention, and one Nord tried to pick a fight with him! But right now Khahkhayre is trying to stay as transparent as possible. Do his business and be on his way. Just passing through.

( Khahkhayre's roster of quests is getting a bit overwhelming. He's got too many promises to keep, too many items to return at the moment. He has no interest in looking for more work,...)

He and Shadow are trying on their way to Riften, where they will return Grimsever, an enchanted glass sword, as well as speak with the Dawn's Guard again. Khahkhayre's game has been a bit aimless at times, but he's got a keen interest in what the vampire hunters will promise in his future.

q

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Aug 23 2012, 07:12 PM

Sounds like that moment when the primary quest becomes "Unload All of This Junk."

I tried leaving dragons out of the game for characters like Nivoniel, but I like the dragons too much. I always end up putting them in. I like my characters to live in a dangerous world, even if they are not fighters. It’s interesting to see how they handle threats that they can’t address on their own. In Niv’s case she sticks to the wagon routes, but dragons can attack cities. So it’s pretty interesting when one does. She’s a decent if unperked archer, but she has no elemental protection. That’s her next task. With her new fire weakness and very little armor, she’s got nothing against a fire dragon.

I’ve never wanted to play a vampire, and funnily enough I didn’t intend for Niv to become one. I’ve been trying out the Dawnguard content with a Nord vampire-hunting werewolf named Mikke. She is pretty awesome, but not at all inspiring to write about. Anyway, with Nivoniel I wanted to see how Dawnguard would impact the world when the character didn’t do the Dawnguard quests, so that if/when it came out for the PS3, I would know whether to get it for my long-running characters. (So far the verdict is definitely no.)

I even chose the Bosmer race for the extra disease resistance. But when Niv got infected, I decided to go with it. She does not have the Vampire Lord powers, and I don’t know why she would ever go to the location where she would meet the right people to gain them. Sunlight does hurt her, but there’s no continuous damage like in Oblivion. No one has attacked her yet. She progressed to Stage 3 before she made it home to feed on Revyn. I hope they left the instant attacks in for Stage 4. It would be a shame for guards to ignore obvious vampires strolling around.

Also Niv is no killer, so the whole stalking prey in the night business horrifies her. She wants to gather all the shiny things, trade them for coin, then go drink some wine with her friends at the cornerclub. She is a city girl at heart, and the thought of being shunned is deeply frightening. This has been an interesting twist for her.

Yeah. Khahkhayre is good at getting things done, problem is he takes on too many "projects". And then he never gets around to returning to the original gal or fellow who wanted her sword back. Or wants to pay him gold.



What's interesting to me is that I created him on June 12, 2012, which means his Earth sign would be Gemini. It's a common trait of typical Geminis that they multitask naturally, can wind up having too many things going on at once, and therefore have trouble finishing them. I haven't done the rest of his horoscope, yet, but I will if he lives long enough.

that's another thing. Khahkhayre is also becoming an "uber". He simply destroys everything in his path, if he wants to, since I play dragon-free games. Every once in a while, he'll meet up with an enemy that almost defeats him, but at this stage Khahkhayre is one of the tops in my Skyrim world.




It's interesting when this happens. We intend or expect a PC to be a certain way and they wind up much different.



Yea I hope Stage 4 will make our vamps get attacked instantly like NPC vamps, especially for lower-disposition characters that already aren't liked very much. In Cyrodiil they wouldn't necessarily attack an S3 vamp, but they would start to comment on his/her condition, and generally seemed displeased to have a vampire in their midst.

And on the sunlight: I'm wondering if sunlight doesn't affect vamps as much as it did in Cyrodiil because Skyrim's light index is often poorer?




This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Aug 19 2012, 04:23 PM

If I do recall correctly from the comments I have seen on the Beth boards, people will not become hostile even if you are a stage 4 vampire if you have Dawnguard. I think they only go hostile if you are in vampire lord/lady form now. Why would they shun a vampire after all? That just makes someone hip and trendy...


I think that is just to make it easier to play a vampire. After all, we cannot have any downsides to it can we? It is the same with werewolves. You can transform any time you want, rather than just on the full moon, and are never forced to transform when you do not want to, or lose control of your character and find yourself killing innocent people at random. Vampires and werewolves are very trendy in pop culture right now, and Bethesda wants to cash in on that by making it very easy to play one.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 19 2012, 06:23 PM

Ugh. That's too bad. Roleplay to the rescue! If Niv ever gets to stage 4, she's going to have to sneak until she feeds. Plus she's afraid to show her face at the cornerclub. Her friends would not appreciate a vampire in their midst, even if the game fails to make them notice.

Here’s a picture of Niv's new look. She had gone to the Ragged Flagon for a new hairstyle, but the facial changes are all vampire. She was a very dark-skinned Bosmer, and vampirism hasn’t made her much lighter. (Despite the guard comments about her snow-white skin.)

And here’s Mikke of Green River, werewolf vampire hunter. She’s kind of a soiled knight. Her lycanthropy has really helped with the drinking problem. That’s her buddy Torvar in the background. He doesn’t object when she goes wolf on some bandit or vampire scum. She’s presently travelling with a Dawnguard NPC. I’m not sure how he’ll take her wild side.

Without mods, sunlight only puts a -100% regen on Health/Magicka/Stamina and lessens them by an ammount defendant on stage. It's not to heavy considering by level 12 or so you can one-to-two-shot 75% of the things in the game. I've never been to interested in playing a vampire in any game, (undead is still dead, and dead things shouldn't move ) but there are a number of mod I've seen in video reviews since Dawnguard came out that adjust vampires. The two major ones will make sunlight damaging (and turn you to a pile of ashes if it kills you) and inflict penalties for not feeding including the option to restore the attack s4 vampires on sight.

I'm pretty sure werewolves are still once a day without the ring of Hircine or mods, but one that I am using sets a forced transformation on full moons (or more depending on chosen setting) though it does allow multiple transformations.

Though I blame KC(and Aravi) for reviving my interest in werewolves.

I must admit, being a vampire is very tempting, but Castle Volkihar is terribly messy, there's blood everywhere and the Dawnguard have huskies so...

Grits: Niv's face is so gaunt, it looks like she needs to eat more. Or drink more, as the case may be. Is that because of her being a vampire? She certainly does not look pale! That remark must be one of the those canned things the guards say if you are a vamp, just like how they comment on you wearing steel, or using a two handed weapon, etc...


lil: Yes, that's about I recall the vamp disadvantages. Since I always turn the automatic heal regen off (which makes restoration level faster) that part is nothing at all in my games. The magic can be offset with one of your standard robe enchantments. The stamina with potions or even just booze. Since you are not regenerating stamina anyway the penalty that alcohol has to your regen rate is a non-issue. The weakness to fire is the only real thing that could be a problem. But even then, only if you run into a flame atronach or fire mage. If you play a Dunmer vamp, you have a 50% fire resistance to offset it as well. Throw in a ring of waning fire and no more problem at all. OTOH you get an equal resistance to cold, which seems to be the deadliest element in this game, given how it slows you as well as harms you. Plus of course there is the whole slew of powers you get.


Hazmick: Huskies? I thought the Dawnguard has pet trolls!

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Aug 20 2012, 08:20 PM

They have both! The huskies have special dog armor, which looks great but doesn't actually make them any tougher.

They do! I'll take a screenie later when I'm home. I haven't actually seen them fight anything though.

Oh yea, good point.

Well I'm just about to turn on the Xbox and start a new game with another version of Haa-Rei the Marsh Ranger. This'll be the 5th version of him as the others keep encountering broken questlines and such which make the story that I want to play out impossible to do. *sigh* and it was going so well after 200 hours with Haa-Rei number 4.

Skyrim is a harsh mistress.

I have yet to encounter any broken questlines. Then again, I'm pretty slow at questing/finishing questlines. Perhaps by the time I start really buckling down and getting them done, Beth will have fixed all the broken ones. So far I've only finished the main College questline, and started Thieve's Guild, Brotherhood, and Civil war quests, but haven't finished any of those.

There was one a few months ago in Markath when my character was supposed to go into this house, and he got stuck in this little room or something, but after messing with loading/reloading, I finally got him un-stuck somehow.

guess I'm lucky.

This post has been edited by Lady Saga: Aug 23 2012, 07:19 PM

I haven't encountered many broken quests but the ones that I do encounter up are fatal to my characters. The Mages Guild and Civil War questlines have ended abruptly and now the quest about the Aetherium Forge (added by Dawnguard) has broken, and for a budding scholar of the Dwemer that just won't do!

Some of these problems happened a while back yet Bethesda still hasn't fixed them I just need to make sure that I save often so I can always keep trying.

Do they (broken quests) start to crop up after a certain amount of play time? I haven't run into any yet, but my character is around 130-150 hours.

I don't think so, no 2 broken quests are ever the same. They can easily be avoided if you make sure to save often, I always forget though.

Mm. I see. I have reloaded things just because something didn't happen correctly. In the Companions, I had to fix Farkas with the command console once because he was supposed to draw a weapon, but for some reason didn't have one. The animation got stuck in 'draw weapon' and it made a hell of a racket.

I had a similar problem with one of my followers although I do not have the luxury of the command console on my Xbox so a nifty shield bash had to suffice For the most part though my game is bug free and runs smoothly so I can count myself pretty lucky. I've heard of people encountering pretty nasty bugs and stuff, especially on the PS3.

Haa-Rei is in Skyrim! I’m sure he was pleased to find some nightshade for his tea.

My ruined quests (PS3) usually get discovered when it’s time for the last step, though the worst one has Aela forever standing in the doorway of Jorrvaskr because the parties to be wiped out had already been accidentally exterminated. That was the end of the Companions for Jensa. Sadly it was a simple quest and a lot happened on the way there, so I didn’t think to keep a save from before she started it. I’ve only had one character become unplayable. DovahKen. Which is strange, because I have two other games that are older and vastly more bloated than his.