Fleur in Skyrim, her own thread, just because. Options

[ghastley]

Rather than pollute other threads with developing my Skyrim character, I'll start a new one.

Fleur, an Orc is following a family tradition by becoming a bear-rider. Her ancestor Uzgash (a daughter of the legendary Gortwog himself) was one, and it's a profession her family approves, unlike some of the others they've had in the past.

She has a white bear to ride, and she's a two-handed fighter, preferring axes. They're the happy medium between the faster swords and the greater damage of hammers. She's current unsure if she likes them enchanted, and needing a supply of soul gems, or just plain.

Her bear is complaining about the armour she's wearing. It's supposed to look like this with plate top, plate boots, and as little as possible in between as detailed in the manual, in my Oblivion mod.

I suspect I'll have to make some for her, although there's a goodish selection of suitable boots. I'm unsure at the moment whether to classify it as Light or Heavy when I do so.

Any advice on the other skills she'd find useful? I'm assuming that Smithing will be one, and enough Alchemy to keep her in health potions, but what else?

[ghastley]

I haven't even finished the third quest of the main mod, and already I've started on an add-on. Fleur wanted to do something to stop all the guards telling her about the Dawnguard, so she went and wiped out the vampires at Volkihar. So then Serana wanted a bear-riding outfit, and we took her to a forge to make some. I'll post pictures tonight, when I get all the outfits together for a shoot. Serana can't yet join, as she's not in the right faction, so I'm working out how to trigger adding her in at a good time. I may decide that needs her mother back from the Soul Cairn, and her vampirism cured, but I'm not ruling out making an alternate path for those who choose the Vampire side.

I now have Leather, Elven, Steel, Steel Plate, Ebony and Vampire armors, and a mage outfit as well. The Vampire gear requires a Potion of Blood, Ebony ingot, and Leather strips to make it, and the mage outfit needs a Linen Wrap, Leather and strips. I note that quality beats quantity, and an improved leather can give much more defence than unimproved plate. Again, needs pictures.

Edit: Pictures as promised.

Quality versus Quantity

Confession: Some of the 303 on her Epic Leather comes from a headband you can't see! The Steel/Plate combo was just taken off a Bandit Boss, and was therefore unimproved.

Basic Steel Armor
Elven Armor
Steel Plate
Same with other boots
Gunilla's Captain Armor (Ebony)

Serana feeling the need for armor
And the results

I'm still tweaking the Mage gear. It's a bit too loose, and doesn't provide any support. There aren't enough potential mage followers to model it, either. Brelyna Maryon and Aranea Ienith are both Dunmer, and relatively slender. I suppose Beth didn't expect mages to bulk up. I haven't checked Illia out yet, but her picture on the wiki makes her look similar to the Dark Elves.

I've had Serana or Aranea tagging along, so Fleur's getting used to friendly fire with spells, especially the AoE kind. Since she's mainly been collecting Dragon Priest masks recently, (so all the bosses are spell-casters), it's hard to tell who cast what. Serana has a bad habit of raising the enemies back up as undead minions, so it's also hard to keep track of who's fighting whom. The blue glow of the revenants easily gets lost in the fireballs and electrical storms of battle. Aranea doesn't revive, but she does use a lot of spells with distracting visual effects.

The bear-rider patrols are a bit hard to set up, as Helgen blocks the roads that lead to the Lodge. I'll most likely have Falkreath as an end-point for the regular part, and have a higher-priority override take them to the Lodge when their R&R turn comes up. I'm still working out the conditions and things for the AI. The procedure stacks within package stacks is more powerful than Oblivion had, but more complex, too.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Nov 5 2013, 04:01 PM