Reverse skills? Leveling up and melee question..., Fighters are supposed to have magic now? Options

[MerGirl]

Oh! I'm sorry for bugging again, but I feel a little worried about some things I have learned from a FAQ on gamefaqs on how to create a character...

I checked a few FAQs on character creation, recommendations for races, etc. and I was a little scared. I am thinking of creating a new character who is like a female monk, using mostly hand-to-hand fighting and other 'melee combat' related skills, since I already have a healer, a thief, and an assassin character.

What I'm worried is, that the FAQ is saying that you should have the opposite skills be your major skills. For example, a combat-oriented character should have magic spells and other skills a fighter would not (usually) have, and vice-versa for magic-oriented characters.

But then, what is the purpose of 'major' skills, if I'm not going to use them? Does the game really get that hard, to the point that you have to exploit the 'scaled' leveling up system? I hope not... (I already slid the difficulty bar down pretty low before I knew this, because I have bad hand-eye coordination.).

Is it possible to be a almost pure melee (I always have Restoration as a skill) for the entire game?

This post has been edited by MerGirl: Apr 18 2006, 10:59 PM

[Konji]

Don't read the guides! They are out to spoil the game, and brainwash us all into powrgamers. Go with what your character uses, that is the spirit of the game. If it does get too hard, attempt to find a way around it! That's what is so great about TES, you can do everything so differently. If it gets too tough, just turn the slider down.

Please ignore any guides you happen across.


My Bosmer took sneak acrobatics and athletics into main skills - the three most undesired main skills - and has come out on top with just over medium difficulty.

[Frostblade10]

first of all, take a breather...


okay, well there are two different playing styles regarding the skills. You gain a level for every 10 times you increase in a major skill. I like to make all the skills im GOING to use my majors so i level up faster, but the reason to reverse the skills is more for someone who will want to max every skill faster. I would just put all of the skills u want to use in the major catagory.

[MerGirl]

Oh, okay... I was getting worried because my characters used, well, the major skills of their class, which I thought was the whole purpose, and then this FAQ just made me doubt myself with all of these statistics and numbers and X modifiers and math stuff. Thought I was going to go nuts with all of that complex stuff.

So, fighter with combat major skills it is, then. Thanks a lot! Glad to see that my roleplaying methods were not wrong...

[HyPN0]

Konradude got it right (exept for that slider part )
Play the game how you like it.Right now,i have the knowledge to create a Mega-Uber Jack of All trades,but i don't want to.I have decided to play a stealth char because i enjoy it like that.And it wasn't hard at all

This is a single-player game.You don't have to prove anything to anyone.
The game is OK to play even with pre-made classes

This post has been edited by HyPN0: Apr 23 2006, 11:32 AM

[Black_Waltz]

There is a bit of a problem with combat skills being a little more needed this time around with leveling monsters. If you use your major skills (lets say Speechcraft, Armourer, Sneak) to advance in levels without leveling up combat skills, the enemies will get tougher without you gaining any way to scale up damage. So you do have to focus on combat more.

However, what the guides say can sometimes ruin the experience. I find a mixed aproach works. Just be cautious about making sure you pick something you can do some damage with as one of your major skills and you should be ok.

[Cadaver]

I personnally choose a balance... I pick one major from each of the 7 abilities. If I am stealth, I dont pick Marcksman, Acrobatics, and sneak as majors. I will level from one dungeon, and if you just straight level like that, then you wont have a chance to level up minor skills in order to get the x5 bonus in 3 attributes. I like destruction, blade, mysticism, armorer (or block, to help soak more damage for weaker chars) marksman, light armor, and illusion as major skills. They are all pretty controlled, and the magick ones can be leveled on demand. So if you suddenly find that you have gained 30 skill levels in minor skills, and really need to level for the attributes, then you can do it. Some people like to make "reverse skill" chars. Even from a powerlevel aspect, I dont like this. If you make a "thief" and level your sneak, marksman, and acrobatics to 100 while still level 1 or 2, you agility and speed attributes will be very hard to max out...

My idea is to play normally, and try to level my character up every 30 skill level gains. This will help my attributes. I also tweak gameplay style based on what attributes I want to focus on. My current toon, a more mage type, is using a lot of spells and either running away, jump/dodging (for speed) or blocking and hyperpowered touch blasts (for endurance). Every level I gain, I get x5 in INT, Will and either End or Sp... all while still staying true to a char type.

But like everyone else said... I also have fun, and really thats all that matters...

Cadaver

[Olav]

I'm still playing my first character, and haven't thought about this 'reverse' approach before reading it here.

I'm a Breton all Mage (class and starsign), and all 7 main skills are the magic ones. I must admit I've levelled up a bit too fast, since all main skills are above 50, some above 75, while very few of the minor skills are above 25 (some are even 5-10).

I'm level 21 now, and starting to experience the difficulty of the enemies, but with all the magic powers I have I'm still doing ok. Going to focus on getting minor skills, like blade and marksman up now.

For my next character I think I'll make a more strategic choice of main skills.

[Proweler]

Oh, okay... I was getting worried because my characters used, well, the major skills of their class, which I thought was the whole purpose, and then this FAQ just made me doubt myself with all of these statistics and numbers and X modifiers and math stuff.  Thought I was going to go nuts with all of that complex stuff. 

So, fighter with combat major skills it is, then.  Thanks a lot! Glad to see that my roleplaying methods were not wrong...

Yea, your doing just fine.

Don't use those guides, they basically make your character stronger without increasing your level. It's just like putting the difficulty down one notch when the going gets to though but allot more tedious.

[DoomedOne]

The way I found to be sure I could make a good character without powergaming was to just be practical, instead of levelling major skills like athletics by running everywhere, I used skills mostly in battle , that way I levelled up in skills that suited the playing style I automatically fell into, and just let my character level naturally.

The exception was my mage character that I wanted to be a demon in hand to hand as his only weapon. I trained hand-to-hand for a while on easier creatures, levelling up more than I should. but it worked out in the end as eventually my hand to hand was good enough to face the toughest of foes (with combination of my magic abilities, of course)

I really wish hand to hand had been given a bigger perk at expert level, like punching no longer lowers fatigue or something.

[Olav]

I must admit I've started a new game now where I take advantage of this 'reverse skill'-approach. My first character leveled up too quickly, and I was level 24 in the end with several skills still at 5-10, and only done the first couple of main quests. I was a mage, and all 7 main skills were the magic ones, which I use all the time, hence the quick leveling.

Now I've started a custom character, and I chose these skills as major:

Armorer
Blade
Block
Light Armor
Marksman
Mercantile
Speechcraft

Race is High Elf and starsign is Mage. I chose Luck and Endurance as main attributes. Not sure if Luck was a very wise choice, but I never seemed to upgrade that when leveling anyway, so 5% extra is ok I guess.

So far I find this a good balance, as I level up slowly mainly while fighting. I'm already starting to get high magical skills without leveling up, which is good.

Only downside is that I have to do those 50 or so quests I did in the first game all over again. I've found many quests I didn't find the first time around though, so it appears the game contains quite many quests.

[Foster]

I always find that, whatever skills I pick, there ends up being some I use, and some I don't. For example, I never really use Speechcraft later in the game, because everyone has a high disp. anyway, and there is no use for it at stores because the gold is set so low.

So eh, just do what you feel like, I suppose.

[Cadaver]

I never use speachcraft either, much easier to make a charm 100 for 3 seconds, anyone can cast that...

Cadaver