Today In Skyrim (Spoilerific), Like the other one, but with added spoilers!!! Options

[Acadian]

Urg. I know what you mean. I had to find a mod to change 'detect 'life' to 'detect any freaking thing of rabbit or larger size that can move!'

[ghastley]

I'm cycling round several characters at the moment, looking for inspiration for the Orc Wise Woman quest. I still haven't even come up with a proper name for Munchkin.

She's shorter than Buffy, but probably twice as wide, being vertically challenged, rather than petite.

Censored full portrait.

Comparative height.

Any suggestions?

She's playing unarmed, and wears a pair of spiked Brawlers (added by the Unarmed Helper mod) and a pair of sandals. Of course nothing else fits her without clipping. Her knees and calves poke through most boots! Her reduced height makes it a lot easier to pick other people up and slam them into the ground, as she doesn't have to lift them very far.

The mod makes the mage armor spells add unarmed damage, as well as defense, so she's reasonably well-balanced. So far she hasn't enchanted anything with Fortify Unarmed, but she may need to do so soon, as she's running out of other options to increase her attack. Without an Unarmed perk tree, she doesn't get any increase from experience using the skill, so the mod provides other means.

I had her build the Wagon, but she's too short to drive. She sits embedded in the seat with just her shoulders showing. She's very low in the saddle when she just uses the horse, too, so mostly she walks.

Just for grins, I had her go and try mano-a-mano with the giant outside Largashbur, but she's not ready yet. A few more levels, and I may try again. Does a fist in the knee have the same effect?

[Acadian]

She's adorable! 'I used to be an adventurer like you; then I took a munchkin in the knee.'

I'm trying to think of a name better than Munchkin. What race is she?

[ghastley]

She's a Nord, rather at random. I made her just after an Altmer that went the other way, with extra-long legs, and a shortened torso to keep her from being too tall. Talwe (pronounced tall-way) is also in the rotation. I may have been thinking that Nord is the opposite of Altmer in Skyrim?

[Acadian]

A Nord, eh? Well you know my propensity for alliteration (aka Buffy the Bowgirl). . .

Sonja Skeever-Scourge
Malikah the Mouse
Svelga the Small

[ghastley]

She almost became Mini the Moocher, but I thought better of it.

Munchkin can now manage Giants. She's killed both the ones in the Cursed Tribe quest, but there aren't any special animations for player/giant.

She hasn't been in to talk to Balgruuf yet, so no dragons to report on. Dragons need a ranged attack, and she's reluctant to use anything but her fists. She's recruited Illia, and is teaching her unarmed, too.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jul 5 2016, 02:03 PM

[Acadian]

Heh, I think Munchkin's her name then!

For a reluctant ranged attacker, your idea of simply using a ranged follower (like Illia) is a good one. Another possibility is staves. Because of their need for recharging, I find they tend to make the user reluctant to use them and it is easy to RP that they don't take much skill to use. Yet another possibility is learning how to summon a flame atronach to execute ranged attacks when needed.

[ghastley]

Illia may get dismissed soon. She was really an experiment to see how an unarmed follower works, and since there are none in the game, I just converted the nearest available. I do like the idea that Munchkin might use staves for ranged.

[Acadian]

Illia is one of those 'orphan' followers. If you don't take her with you, she just pines away in some old dungeon (like Galdir and Erandur). That's why I normally (via a follower management mod) assign Illia as assistant to the absent-minded Wylandriah in Riften.

Areana seems a bit lonely in vanilla as well, but the Azura's temple mod we use gives her plenty of company at Azura's Shrine.

[ghastley]

I played a bit more with Munchkin, to take a break from the Bosmers. She's starting to fall behind her enemies, as she has no primary attack skill to advance.

Unarmed gets a boost from Fists of Steel in the Heavy Armor tree, but that's a single effect that doesn't improve. The Unarmed Helper mod is adding higher-damage gauntlets, an ability that adds damage equal to player level, and a boost from Mage Armor spells. Since she doesn't fit into armour, the Mage Armour spells are needed anyway. Her Alteration is going up fairly well because of that. She has the Fortify Unarmed enchantment available, and is trying to raise that skill, too.

Because her gauntlets have to be Heavy to get the benefit, she gets some experience in HA from those.

That all means that she has an odd collection of skills - Alteration, Enchanting, Restoration, (needs to heal often), Heavy Armour, and a bit of One-handed to improve dual-wielding speed. None of those are directly advanced by using her fists.

Illia is matching her, rather than being her usual mage self, so I'm gimping them both at once.

Edit: Munchkin made the wagon early on, as the coin-toss gave her that as a base. She can't drive, she's so short she disappears into the driving seat.

She just had her first set of hired thugs, who met her just at the same time as a bunch of Thalmor. The two groups battled it out while she watched, and then she just had to finish off a very much weakened Justiciar.

Re-Edit: I added Dragonborn to her game after her trip to High Hrothgar, and she's started the main quest over there. General Falx Carius was very challenging for a party without a ranged attack of any significance.

I haven't been to Solstheim with any character that built the wagon, so I'm waiting to see if hired thugs will track her there, too.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 8 2016, 02:32 PM

[ghastley]

Started a new character to use my Vampirella outfit and spells, and also repeat the unarmed thing, trying NOT to use the brawler gauntlets this time. She's a big Orc, so that the unarmed seems feasible, and has my big Orc hair, rather than the Vampi 'do, but boring black, rather than bright anything.

I'm not sure yet whether she'll do unarmed, and fall back to spells, or use the drain spell until she runs out of magicka, and then fall back to fists. Either way, I need to choose a ranged option, and the former suggests bow, but the latter suggests a ranged spell. All the levels of Absorb Health are short-range concentration spells.

One issue I have with unarmed is that you can't hit a key to unequip a spell. A second press of the hotkey equips it to the other hand, instead of removing it, and they always equip to the left hand. I may look for a mod that changes that, if it's possible.

[Renee]

Wow, just the fact that you'd even consider going unarmed is interesting. I suppose she can do a bit more than the vanilla roundhouse punches, eh?

This post has been edited by Renee: Aug 30 2016, 01:12 AM

[Grits]

ghastley, if you use SkyUI you can set the favorites groups to unequip hands. You have set their outfit as a group and then when you hit that group button they end up wearing what they’re already wearing (re-equipped) but with empty fists.

I imagine that fight with General Carius was exciting!

[SubRosa]

It is too bad Skryim does not have 'unarmed' weapons like Fisto and the Deathclaw gauntlet in the Fallout games. That would make it simpler to go unarmed, and would give you a means to increase your damage at higher levels, to keep up with the monsters. I wonder if something like that could be made with a mod?


Looks like there are several. Unarmed Combat seems pretty straightforward. It adds 'knuckle' weapons, and makes your unarmed attacks work off of the One-Handed skill and perks. It requires Script Dragon though.

New Unarmed Hand to Hand Skill looks pretty decent too. It also adds 'unarmed' weapons, and new unarmed skills.

Martial Arts also adds new animations. I think it would be compatible with any of the other unarmed mods out there, since it only replaces the animations.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Sep 4 2016, 05:45 PM

[ghastley]

The one I'm using is Unarmed Helper.

It adds damage in a multitude of ways so you can choose to use any or all of them to adjust. There are higher-damage gauntlets, a boost from an ability (based on character level) and another along with the Mage armor spells. You can enchant more slots with Fortify Unarmed then the original two, and there's a pair of "boxing gloves" at Belethor's to learn it from, without going after the ones in the Ratway.

The combo effect with mage armor is a nice touch. Most of the other boosts come from gauntlets, which are an armor item that negates the perk, so it makes you choose between the extra damage of gauntlets and the extra defense of not wearing them.

I played a bit with an Orc wearing the Vampirella outfit and using only fists + flesh spells. It worked at low levels, at least.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Sep 4 2016, 09:48 PM

[mALX]

It is too bad Skryim does not have 'unarmed' weapons like Fisto and the Deathclaw gauntlet in the Fallout games. That would make it simpler to go unarmed, and would give you a means to increase your damage at higher levels, to keep up with the monsters. I wonder if something like that could be made with a mod?


Looks like there are several. Unarmed Combat seems pretty straightforward. It adds 'knuckle' weapons, and makes your unarmed attacks work off of the One-Handed skill and perks. It requires Script Dragon though.

New Unarmed Hand to Hand Skill looks pretty decent too. It also adds 'unarmed' weapons, and new unarmed skills.

Martial Arts also adds new animations. I think it would be compatible with any of the other unarmed mods out there, since it only replaces the animations.

Maybe create/design/add a gauntlet with spikes as a weapon instead of armor; when "equipped" it does X damage that is increased by a percentage (Y) of the Player's unarmed/H2H skill level?

The one I'm using is Unarmed Helper.

It adds damage in a multitude of ways so you can choose to use any or all of them to adjust. There are higher-damage gauntlets, a boost from an ability (based on character level) and another along with the Mage armor spells. You can enchant more slots with Fortify Unarmed then the original two, and there's a pair of "boxing gloves" at Belethor's to learn it from, without going after the ones in the Ratway.

The combo effect with mage armor is a nice touch. Most of the other boosts come from gauntlets, which are an armor item that negates the perk, so it makes you choose between the extra damage of gauntlets and the extra defense of not wearing them.

I played a bit with an Orc wearing the Vampirella outfit and using only fists + flesh spells. It worked at low levels, at least.

This is Awesome!








This post has been edited by mALX: Sep 4 2016, 10:19 PM

[SubRosa]

All this talk of unarmed combat makes me want to roll a martial arts toon to beat the game with. Cassia Clay, or Jackie Chan!

[ghastley]

Right now, I'm running Brelyna as a player character, so I can create some screenshots to illustrate Clark's story, but she's taking over, and having fun.

She was travelling with Lydia, so I could have her develop as a pure mage, but she's switched to Mjoll, now that she's got Grimsever back for her. I haven't had her join the College, and meet herself, so she's not doing their quests. I can give her some of the items via console, to match her Chronicles progress, such as the circlet Aren hands out. I lent her the Staff of Magnus to pose with, last time she was in Windhelm, but took it away again after the photo-shoot.

Once she's reached Solstheim levels, I'll have to decide about making an NPC Diablita, or just re-using Marcurio as Clark, as in Gilda's game. It may have to be both, with AFT to let me have a group of three. Vicuña isn't with them enough for me to need her as an NPC.

She's getting impatient for a change of hairstyle, which will have to wait a bit, but I've already found one or two that suit her. I also need her to advance Conjuration faster, so she can summon Frosties. Her Destruction and Alteration are further ahead right now.

I discovered that the guards at Black-briar lodge wear Steel Plate, even at lower levels than bandits do, so Mjoll has some, improved as much as Brelyna can manage. She still has iron boots (but enchanted ones) and Steel gauntlets.

[Grits]

How fun! I wondered right away if she had a new hairstyle.

[ghastley]

Brelyna has Clark (Marcurio) in tow on Solstheim, and we've hit a Catch-22 situation.

She needs higher conjuration skills to survive in Apocrypha, so she needs to train with Talvas, but she can't do that until after the Gardener of Men quest. Up to then, he's outside trying to summon an Ash Guardian, and doesn't have access to his merchant chest, so won't sell (or train). She's read the book Epistolary Acumen, but is stuck in Chapter two, as she can't defeat the lurker and two seekers without a better distraction than a flame atronach. I may have to adjust the difficulty slider.

I gave her a new hairstyle when she got to Adept level and changed to an Adept outfit. That was just before the trip to the island. She'll get another when she gets a bit further along with Neloth's quests and has her own Telvanni robes.

This was what she looked like when she was going around with Mjoll. She didn't do the quest to get the Staff, I just gave it to her for the photo-shoot. She'll end up like this, but I don't yet have a picture of the current style, although this one shows the outfit, with the old hair.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Oct 12 2016, 05:53 PM