mirocu - Buffy’s smack in the middle of Cyrodiil now, playing in the water at Shadeleaf Copse.

CT – It's wonderful to have you back playing OB. I know you’ve been struggling a bit for motivation and certainly wish you well as you search for that next ‘just right’ character.

Renee – So sorry to hear about Saga’s horse. Glad that it did not deter you from a 12 hour game-athon!

Rihanae – Hee, Buffy drank a bottle of Tamikas, slept for 24 hours and the sandstorm had passed! She’s now back in Cyrodiil. Wonderful to know that Lissa’s traveling Cyrodiil again, tracking down her pals. I know what Lissa means about itching for a dungeon dive. Buffy gets cranky if she doesn’t get to use her bow. . . and the powerful weapon wasn’t exactly made for hunting deer or rabbit.

*

Buffy left Skingrad before dawn heading for Shadeleaf Copse. En route, she encountered a war party of three goblin skirmishers heading south.

She was not shocked, for she knows that sometimes Goblin Jim’s White Skins mount raids against the Sharp Tooths that live in Deserted Mine. She’s encountered such groups in the past and when she’s been attacked, their corpses verified they were White Skins. She’s also encountered them fighting with the Sharp Tooths just outside Deserted Mine in the past. Happily, traveling with 360 feet of detect life allowed Buffy and Superian to stay well out of their way this time.

She uneventfully continued on to Shadeleaf Copse to play in the water and let her mare drink her fill.

You are hardcore!

Lothran is currently staying at The Count´s Arms in Anvil

Yuh, I was like ... in the zone with my toon. Buffing up my archer, pwning some baddie NPCs. I wanted to keep grinding, too. I could have grinded all night!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loredas, 8:55 AM, Sun's Dusk 17, 4th Era 4

"Hi, I'm Rasheda -- the smith -- and this is Fire and Steel. Quality armors and weapons, and repairs, too. What can I do for you?"

The elf with the gold-colored hair looks in anguish at the Redguard's selection, seeing nothing outstanding.

Chainmail. I had upon my person a full suit of chainmail, set together by one piece here, and one piece there. All of it gone.

"I offer the finest goods and lowest prices in all Cyrodiil."

Aerin from Valenwood gazes upon Rasheda's 'goods', but her prices aren't as low as she claims. There are others, in the Imperial City and also Leyawiin who would slaughter Rasheda if she had to compete directly with them. But still, these goods are of ready-make and simply of availability. And I need such.

"You're a fine negotiator!" Rasheda compliments, really liking the idea of the business she's expecting to get from the elf before her, on this otherwise slow day. One thing she's learned after all these years: she knows the look & smell of money when encounters it.

After the 4th Era had commenced and the Oblivion Crisis had ended, buying and selling had suffered for awhile. The towns were safe. Soldiers and guards usually kept their own gear in fine repair. Adventurers had disappeared and gone back to wherever they came from. So business had suffered, despite the fact that Chorrol's population had nearly doubled in the last 4 years. But lately it seemed like .... business might be coming back.

"I ... shall take the breast-plate of leather, the boots of deerskin fur, the breeches of iron, and the helm of ... no ... no helm for now. But I shall take all the others within my stated repertoire. Did you follow my listing?"

But Rasheda doesn't miss a beat. "That's a good deal!" She's been established and doing this for way too long to not know how to memorize an order. "Thank you, come again!"

As Lady Saga turns to go, and begins to sip upon a bottle of mead, she abruptly stops and then turns around so quickly, Rasheda does a double-take. In that moment, Rasheda thinks she sees something ... dangerous about this otherwise quaint-talking, properly-mannered elf. She sees a hint of a look upon the elf's face, as if she's suddenly angry about something, and the Redguard smith feels a touch of fear because of this.....

But the elf merely says... "Oh. A bow. Silly me. I need a bow. And I make presumption that you have only got iron? ..."

"Only quality goods for sale here .. what can I interest you in?"

"One iron bow," the elf says, having another sip of her mead. The elf seems flippant and gay, all a sudden. Smiling shyly. "One crossbow of iron, and .. I shall have forty of those arrows of iron. Ten bolts of steel. And you have silver? .. Draggardzly, only bolts? No arrows? Very well, five bolts of silver, then". .. The gold in Rasheda's till has gone from 'Septims for dinner' to 'Septims for a two entire weeks of dinners' in flash.

As Saga turns to go, Rasheda can't help but think about that look upon the elf's face, the one she had just witnessed. So many enemies must see that face before their doom she realizes.

This post has been edited by Renee Gade IV: Apr 1 2014, 01:26 AM

mirocu - I hope Wilbur's got some Tamikas!

Renee - Saga's right, Rasheda's not cheap.

*

After playing in the water at Shadeleaf Copse, Buffy and Superian headed south to intercept the Gold Road, then turned east toward the IC. Near Greenmead Cave, she came upon a dead Legion rider. The sword wounds on the corpse of the nearby minotaur told the story. It was some consolation that the rider’s Legion bay gelding was unharmed.

After strapping the soldier’s sword and shield to his horse (Active Inventory Spell mod), Buffy built a pyre and sadly torched the Imperial’s remains. She then coaxed the horse to follow Superian. She did have to dismount several times to refresh the gentle but long-lasting command spell that kept the gelding following her mare as they continued on to the IC.

Once Superian and the Legion gelding were stabled at Equestria, in the Valley of the Horses (right in front of the University), she reported the incident to the Imperial Legion Battlemage on duty at the University gates. A sad ending to a long trip. At least she is back home in her apartment in the Mystic Archives now.

It's always sad to see someone who serves suffer such an unfortunate fate. Both in and out of the game world...

At least Buffy could honor the legionnaires passing well, and look after his horse

She´s much better with that than Lothran. He only puts the sword back onto the soldier and walks away...

Some of my more honorable/good characters would look after them. Attia in particular, being an (ex) legionnaire, always did all that was possible on console to look after them..

I love Lady Saga’s version of strong language. I’ve been having a similar marathon with Kanet. I’m in an empty house for a few days.

How sad to find a fallen Legion rider. Jerric hordes Command scrolls in case he finds a stranded horse, but he rarely gets them as far as he’d like. Maybe someday he’ll find a Staff of Taming.

Well, Armion failed to materialise, due to being supplanted by another character. *Shrug* Though as it turns out Armion was sort of a re-energence of an old character I never got round to starting, seems it's a pattern with him

Anyway, I'm currently at the end of the tutorial dungeon with my new character, a Dunmer named Tarvyn Dralor. I'd throw in a pic, but I've not actually given him a face yet.

Well, I've now got a couple of pictures of Tarvyn Dralor, each with a different light source. I couldn't get his face quite the way I wanted, but I can't really describe how... Anyway:

Pic 1

Pic 2

And don't worry about the vague ghostly thing in there, that's just my reflection. Trying to take a picture of a dark screen on a bright day... *shrug* What can you do?

Since I've now got pics, I might as well say a little about him.

He's a stelath/magic hybrid, using blade (daggers and shortswords), marksman, and destruction (his only majors that he uses). He'll use the other schools of magic, but he's pretty much useless at restoration. He can cast a basic healing spell, but that's literally it. And he doesn't wear armour.

He's from Vvardenfell, formerly a low ranking member of both House Telvanni and the Morag Tong, and a follower of Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala. He believes that Morrowind, and the Dunmeri people in general, owe the Empire a debt of gratitude for their role in the reincarntaion of the Nerevarine, who cast down the false gods of the Tribunal. Though it should be noted that he still respects Vivec.

He was in the Imperial City Prison because he sought guidance from the Shrine of Mephala in Vvardenfell. Mephala told him to leave Vvardenfell, travel to the Imperial City, and to kill the first guardsman he found. Which of course landed him in prison, where he was waiting to find out exactly why Mephala sent him to Cyrodiil.

Looks like a solid character, Callidus. I hope you´ll connect with him like you want

What's he going to do to defend himself, then? Reflect Damage isn't a spell, all the "Absorb x" and "Resist x" spells are restoration, so you've gimped him out of everything but avoiding combat. I suppose he can collect enchanted items other than armour for some of that, but a lot of it's only available at higher levels.

I think that non-armor apparel items enchanted with fire, frost and shock shield can match conventional armor vs physical damage while maintaining full spell effectiveness, providing some protection from the elements and bypassing the need to repair apparel. Alteration has plenty of defensive type magic effects. Blocking with a weapon can eventually reduce physical damage taken while blocking up to 50%. While the ability to make strong enchantments is somewhat limited at lower levels, so are foes' ability to inflict big damage. Also, the enchanted apparel can be augmented by buff spells that use the same elemental shield effects. And finally, alchemy can augment one's defense quite dramatically.

Every character (hopefully) has their challenges, but I don't see defense as being overly gimped in this case. I readily admit that having access to custom spell and enchanting altars (via the MG or Frostcrag) would be pretty important. I also can see that this character (like many mages and stealthers) might require a bit more caution in combat at low levels than his heavily armored Nordic warrior counterpart.

It seems that skill with bow, blades, all magic schools except restoration would readily make up for not using armor or the wonderful school of restoration. Heck, illusion plus conjuration alone can pretty much for a survivable character.

Am I missing something?

Acadian's pretty much answered this for me, but I'll throw out the idea anyway.

The general idea behind his defense is combat superiority.

Marksman and destruction give him plenty of options for dealing damage to enemies before they reach melee range. Adding in poisoned arrows and sneak attacks where possible and with a little caution anything close enough to swing a sword at him has already taken a battering. Early on an apprentice level shield spell provides more protection than a full set of light armour, and alchemy can always be used to supplement that.

At higher levels it gets downright evil. Illusion opens up the potential for short term paralysis, lethal when combined with weakness spells and an enchanted dagger. Short term invisibility can allow for repeated strike to an enemies back, and can be combined in a spell with weaknesses to amp up the dagger damage. Command and summons can either remove the need for combat, or can provide diversions to allow opportunistic strikes at enemies fighting other targets.

Sure, he's a glass cannon, but he's a glass cannon with a bayonet.

Recently started working on some edits for a few screenies, just to give them a bit more beauty haha.

Here is a simple example:

Before

After


The difference isn't hugely noticeable, but it's so much more colourful and warm than the original I'm working on a few other edits now

Got round to installing the Better Cities mod, so Lissa and I have had a lot of fun exploring the new layouts. Anvil and the IC in particular are breathtaking!

The only thing we don't like is how it changed Bravil. It's become disgustingly gore ridden, but until I figure out how to change it to a nicer look it'll have to do... I wont let one bad banana ruin the bunch!

Stunning pics, Rihanae. Love the Horse Armor too. My characters have explored all the 'better' Cities except Skingrad and Anvil. I'm saving those for last.

Grits: Thanks, yeah, sometimes language becomes ... nasty.

CT: Hope your glass cannon survives. Don't you dare start pushing that difficulty slider to the right.

Wouldn't dream of it. I learnt that lesson about two years and forty(???) characters ago



I have just had what is, for me, a genuinely new gameplay experience in Oblivion.

Night had fallen by the time Tarvyn left the sewers. Rather than swim across the lake, making the journey longer and forcing him to travel by road, Tarvyn skirted the City Isle. He hugged the coastline, travelling in short dashes followed by pauses as he checked to see if his presence hadbeen noted. He found a wooden bridge that got him across the lake, and headed west, guided by the main bridge that could just be seen in the darkness.

Using that to guage his direction, he kept going west until he found a road that looked to be heading in the right direction. After waiting for a Legionnaire to move past, he checked the road sign. He journeyed as best he could along a path parallel to the road, not daring to get in sight of it for long, and made his way to Weynon Priory.

Between the darkness and the route, nothing saw him but wolves, mudcrabs, and rats. And Tarvyn killed them all.

It was awesome

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: Apr 3 2014, 03:08 PM

Rihanae - So nice to see some pix of Lissa (and her well-protected horse).

CT - It's wonderful that Tarvyn is striking a chord for you. Best wishes as he continues to adventure.

*

Buffy recently returned from a black tar-gathering and dungeon-crawling expedition to the Shivering Isles. Her traveling range is large and varied, but the SI is, without a doubt, the most dangerous place she visits. The foes are fast, numerous and unpredictable in their movements. And the terrain really channelizes elf and horse, removing much of the 'speed over open spaces' advantage they enjoy in Cyrodiil and Elsweyr. She was relieved to spend a quiet day recovering and refurbishing in Bravil. Next morning, the sun warmed Superian's right side as they headed north toward the Valley of Horses and Arcane University.

By the time the sun was kissing elf and mare's left shoulders, they stopped at Pells Gate for the night. While there, Buffy learned that those pesky marauders and bandits have, once again, infested nearby Fort Homestead. As that clearly represents a threat to travelers along the Green Road, I figure Buffy's next morning is spoken for.