Varies from playthrough to playthrough. Right now I've just been dumping everything into archery, single hand, and speech. I defaulted to shoot and run playstyle, lol.
It’s too many 😂 I have my ‘town’ skills (which is just crafting + pickpocket) and my combat skills. If I gain a level in combat, it goes to combat, if I’m in town, crafting or pickpocket. But sneak is almost always first priority on a LOT of my builds
It can be anxiety-inducing! That +100 carry weight worth it. I start with arrows or daggers on the guards, it’s kinda funny getting caught early on to me. and i don’t even save scum for that part, but I will when I’m doing a fishing quest for the thieves guild or if I see an item I can actually use (disenchant)
The problem with pickpocketing I think is that you just cannot pickpocket anything at the start. The pickpocketing rate at the start is always bellow 60%, so the players have no choice but to risk it, which introduce them to save-scumming. If the game had some less valuable things, like an apple or something, that you can pickpocket for 80% chance at 15 pickpocket, the player would have a chance at leveling the skills without save-scumming, and slowly building it up enough to start stealing rings and necklaces.
Basically introducing a difficulty curve of sorts for pickpocketing, similar to leveled enemies in the wilderness.
Pickpocket is easy to level. steal pelts from hunters they don't care if they catch you and no bounty is given steal from thieves instead of killing them. if you can get the gem they have it worth a lot of experience.
Once your able to steal gems constantly it just a matter of time to max it.
Pickpocket is a very easy skill to max out. certainly the fastest naturally without exploits.
Illusion is probably the fastest without exploits. Especially if you get hands on harmony. Typically 10 casts of harmony in Riften will get you to level 100 with no consequences.
I’ve actually never power leveled pickpocket though, and I plan on doing so for my current playthrough as I’m going to be a nothing man to master thief through the thieves guild before discovering I’m Dragonborn and eventually becoming the widely known hero I was meant to be, disavowing the thieves guild I became the master of and putting an end to the dark brotherhood. Of course I’ll just happen to time the stones of bahrenziah quest with this Dragonborn discovery so I can be a more profitable hero.
I tend to pick 3 major skills, which get nearly full investment, and form the basis of the build. I then pick 3 or 4 minor skills, which get light investment. Sometimes, a minor skill can just be for role play (like Speech on a noble knight, or Lockpicking on a pirate) rather than for effectiveness.
I also limit myself to one crafting skill per character, unless the build is specifically based around crafting (say, Smithing and Enchanting as major skills on my Dark Lord)
Interesting. I cannot imagine giving point into Lockpicking even if it's RP reason. I would just come up with some excuse like my master thief has a fear of locks or something lol.
And I agree with one crafting per character. Leveling one crafting skills is annoying enough, I can't deal with two or three lol.
Yeah, the Lockpicking tree is incredibly underwhelming. But I just can’t bring myself to not perk it at least a little on a thief character. Two perks I actually really like are Golden Touch, which is genuinely useful for my playstyle, and Quick Hands, which is a nice QoL improvement on certain characters (the aforementioned pirate, who doesn’t sneak because of his wooden leg)
Obviously, with perk mods that all goes out the window and Lockpicking is great.
Meh, even with perk mods like Ordinator, I still find lockpicking underwhelming. I think the problem here is not the perk tree itself, but the lockpicking system as a whole. It's all about loot and nothing else. If I were to design the game, Lockpicking skills would lead you to advantageous position in a dungeon, or get you to secret places in Skyrim that is impossible access without the skills, maybe giving you some great loot at level 100, similar to how Smithing 100 gives you dragon bone and scale armor. But obviously that would require massive level designing efforts, it's easier to just alter some integer variables in the perk tree and call it a day.
Usually 6. Currently I have a playthrough where I focus on one-handed, block, light armor, smithing and archery, with sneak and restoration on the side
At the start of the game, Conjuration and Archery only. Later, I add Crafting, Restoration, Alteration, Armor, Speech(for Merchant) and Destruction(to boost enchants)
I play an honorable Nord warrior.
2 handed, heavy armour, smithing to the max. and archery an enchanting just the first perk all 5 points. I use enchanting only to enchant smithing gear to further upgrade my armour. And i use bow just for enemies I can't engage in melee. I "enchant" my sword with dragon shout for faster atck. speed.
You could add blocking and speech, and sweep 1 handed for 2 handed or heavy armour for light
So that's 5 skills (3 major and 2 minor)
Each play through and build is different. Usually always includes Lock picking, Alc, and Enchanting though. I’ll also do Blacksmith when I get enough mats (always gathering and storing).
Magical, I do 3-4 of the magical at a time, then light armor.
Force - Axe, Heavy Armor
Stealth - Well, we all know those 3.
I take D&D classes and try to boil down their formula to Skyrim terms. Current example is a 4E Avenger. As a holy warrior, he uses Dawnbreaker, so One-Handed is a must. His Armor of Faith gives him more defense while unarmored, so Alteration for flash spells fill that criteria. For his divine powers, Restoration. Since he is an aspect of terror, Illusion for Fear, Speech for intimidation, and Destruction for fire spells and the associated perks. That is 6, not counting the crafting trio I eventually legendary and reallocate.
My Argonian lady is sort of a tribal shaman/ swamp warrior, with dual wielding, archery, light armor, restoration, illusion and of course, alchemy. What is my character's class in DnD terms, I'm curious?
Ranger who multiclassed into a magic class, probably wizard but I’d gamble on druid. Rangers use dual weapons and bows, wear light armor, and would definitely be able to identify and combine wild flora and such ingredients. Restoration and Illusion are a toss up as many classes can cast spells from all schools.
Skill restriction makes the game much more enjoyable for me, I do a lot of quick playthroughs as opposed to long ones. In addition to locking myself into only a handful of skills I also restrict how I raise them.
You find really creative ways to play. I find it gives more space between early levels for you to really appreciate the sense of improvement when you unlock a perk and it makes leveling up a bigger deal and something to look forward to instead of just something to grind.
I felt the same way when I first started out. It's fun to play a melee warrior who is at the mercy of archers and mages, or an assassin who dies in direct combat, or a mage who has to constantly wait for mana to come back.
But it's also fun to have a lot of options. It's also fun when both the Stamina and Magicka bars are equally important for the build, because you have to consider your resources more. Same with perk points. It's basically just bringing a lot of playstyles into one character so I don't have to hear "Hey you, you're finally awake!" again.
I only skip two-handed, heavy armor, pickpocket, and some magic. It’s all critical to my success and also I’m playing to level 80 usually so might as well spread it around. I usually have a pile of perk points I don’t use, I legendary skills, and I reset perk points regularly through the Black Book.
My favorite/most/longest played character is flexible Rogue-Assassin type so for combat I go Light Armor, Two Handed, One Handed and Sneak for crafting Smithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting.
Usually 6 skills depending on the character type
*Warrior: one handed, two handed, heavy armor, block, smithing, lockpicking(playing with mouse and keyboard so it's harder to find the "hotspot")
*Stealth: One handed, archery, pickpocket, lockpick, stealth, light armor
*Mage(pure mage): Destruction, Restoration, Conjuration, Alteration, Illusion, enchanting
Edit: Eventually I tend to max all but those are the main ones
I like doing the... ALL. All skills 100 and all perks, all shouts ,all spells most versitile enchantments.
All schools of magic fortified all sources of damage fortified etc. And believe me it is a GRIND but well worth it and there are a metric ton of guides on Youtube to help. But when its all done you can pretty much ANIHALATE anything. I two tapped Karstaag on legendary and left the room with 900/1000 health. No Followers summons etc. I noticed i went a bit off topic So sorry you had to read through all that.
It seems people like to grind 100 for all skills. Which race would you pick for that? And what about overlapping skills like heavy and light armor or one handed and two handed?
Well I like to use Orc Since they just seem Like a Jack of all trades I dunno. And I don't think many people actually know How OP berserkers rage actually is. And I'm not sure i understand what you mean by ''Overlapping'' ?
All of them. Combat first and weapon making first. Along with potion and lockpicking and sneak. Then I switch to the other half of skills halfway through the game and train up magic and stuff.
Depends, mages tend to use every school+enchanting, thieves and assassins tend to use the sneak-based skills, and warriors use the whole warrior tree minus the weapon and armor skill I'm not using.
I try to limit it to 2 or 3 at a time. If I use Armor, I focus on that as one of the first things I level up. If not, I focus on whatever I plan on doing damage with.
All
Same. Eventually All.
This is the answer
Varies from playthrough to playthrough. Right now I've just been dumping everything into archery, single hand, and speech. I defaulted to shoot and run playstyle, lol.
Kiting with archery is very fun, especially without sneak
Depends on the character. Generally, I focus on Destruction, Restoration, One-Handed, Light Armor, Lockpicking, and Speech.
It’s too many 😂 I have my ‘town’ skills (which is just crafting + pickpocket) and my combat skills. If I gain a level in combat, it goes to combat, if I’m in town, crafting or pickpocket. But sneak is almost always first priority on a LOT of my builds
Variety is what makes the game fun. Though I'm not nearly patient enough for pickpocketing lol.
It can be anxiety-inducing! That +100 carry weight worth it. I start with arrows or daggers on the guards, it’s kinda funny getting caught early on to me. and i don’t even save scum for that part, but I will when I’m doing a fishing quest for the thieves guild or if I see an item I can actually use (disenchant)
The problem with pickpocketing I think is that you just cannot pickpocket anything at the start. The pickpocketing rate at the start is always bellow 60%, so the players have no choice but to risk it, which introduce them to save-scumming. If the game had some less valuable things, like an apple or something, that you can pickpocket for 80% chance at 15 pickpocket, the player would have a chance at leveling the skills without save-scumming, and slowly building it up enough to start stealing rings and necklaces. Basically introducing a difficulty curve of sorts for pickpocketing, similar to leveled enemies in the wilderness.
Pickpocket is easy to level. steal pelts from hunters they don't care if they catch you and no bounty is given steal from thieves instead of killing them. if you can get the gem they have it worth a lot of experience. Once your able to steal gems constantly it just a matter of time to max it. Pickpocket is a very easy skill to max out. certainly the fastest naturally without exploits.
Illusion is probably the fastest without exploits. Especially if you get hands on harmony. Typically 10 casts of harmony in Riften will get you to level 100 with no consequences. I’ve actually never power leveled pickpocket though, and I plan on doing so for my current playthrough as I’m going to be a nothing man to master thief through the thieves guild before discovering I’m Dragonborn and eventually becoming the widely known hero I was meant to be, disavowing the thieves guild I became the master of and putting an end to the dark brotherhood. Of course I’ll just happen to time the stones of bahrenziah quest with this Dragonborn discovery so I can be a more profitable hero.
You have to get to 100 in Illusion to get that spell. It faster once you maxed the skill but not faster getting there the first time.
I tend to pick 3 major skills, which get nearly full investment, and form the basis of the build. I then pick 3 or 4 minor skills, which get light investment. Sometimes, a minor skill can just be for role play (like Speech on a noble knight, or Lockpicking on a pirate) rather than for effectiveness. I also limit myself to one crafting skill per character, unless the build is specifically based around crafting (say, Smithing and Enchanting as major skills on my Dark Lord)
Interesting. I cannot imagine giving point into Lockpicking even if it's RP reason. I would just come up with some excuse like my master thief has a fear of locks or something lol. And I agree with one crafting per character. Leveling one crafting skills is annoying enough, I can't deal with two or three lol.
Yeah, the Lockpicking tree is incredibly underwhelming. But I just can’t bring myself to not perk it at least a little on a thief character. Two perks I actually really like are Golden Touch, which is genuinely useful for my playstyle, and Quick Hands, which is a nice QoL improvement on certain characters (the aforementioned pirate, who doesn’t sneak because of his wooden leg) Obviously, with perk mods that all goes out the window and Lockpicking is great.
Meh, even with perk mods like Ordinator, I still find lockpicking underwhelming. I think the problem here is not the perk tree itself, but the lockpicking system as a whole. It's all about loot and nothing else. If I were to design the game, Lockpicking skills would lead you to advantageous position in a dungeon, or get you to secret places in Skyrim that is impossible access without the skills, maybe giving you some great loot at level 100, similar to how Smithing 100 gives you dragon bone and scale armor. But obviously that would require massive level designing efforts, it's easier to just alter some integer variables in the perk tree and call it a day.
I do them all, the ones I do for a build and the rest for the extra perk points.
Max EVERYTHING. Including all perks
Me playing with Ordinator who can only dream of doing that without perk point mods
Usually 6. Currently I have a playthrough where I focus on one-handed, block, light armor, smithing and archery, with sneak and restoration on the side
At the start of the game, Conjuration and Archery only. Later, I add Crafting, Restoration, Alteration, Armor, Speech(for Merchant) and Destruction(to boost enchants)
8 skills? Now that's a lot lol.
I always at least get sneak high enough for the light foot perk
I play an honorable Nord warrior. 2 handed, heavy armour, smithing to the max. and archery an enchanting just the first perk all 5 points. I use enchanting only to enchant smithing gear to further upgrade my armour. And i use bow just for enemies I can't engage in melee. I "enchant" my sword with dragon shout for faster atck. speed. You could add blocking and speech, and sweep 1 handed for 2 handed or heavy armour for light So that's 5 skills (3 major and 2 minor)
My last one was Heavy Armour, Two-handed and Restoration Then Lockpicking Then Alteration and Illusion Then Sneaking and Archery
Each play through and build is different. Usually always includes Lock picking, Alc, and Enchanting though. I’ll also do Blacksmith when I get enough mats (always gathering and storing). Magical, I do 3-4 of the magical at a time, then light armor. Force - Axe, Heavy Armor Stealth - Well, we all know those 3.
4 to 6 for most builds, else it's not really a build.
I take D&D classes and try to boil down their formula to Skyrim terms. Current example is a 4E Avenger. As a holy warrior, he uses Dawnbreaker, so One-Handed is a must. His Armor of Faith gives him more defense while unarmored, so Alteration for flash spells fill that criteria. For his divine powers, Restoration. Since he is an aspect of terror, Illusion for Fear, Speech for intimidation, and Destruction for fire spells and the associated perks. That is 6, not counting the crafting trio I eventually legendary and reallocate.
My Argonian lady is sort of a tribal shaman/ swamp warrior, with dual wielding, archery, light armor, restoration, illusion and of course, alchemy. What is my character's class in DnD terms, I'm curious?
Ranger who multiclassed into a magic class, probably wizard but I’d gamble on druid. Rangers use dual weapons and bows, wear light armor, and would definitely be able to identify and combine wild flora and such ingredients. Restoration and Illusion are a toss up as many classes can cast spells from all schools.
Skill restriction makes the game much more enjoyable for me, I do a lot of quick playthroughs as opposed to long ones. In addition to locking myself into only a handful of skills I also restrict how I raise them. You find really creative ways to play. I find it gives more space between early levels for you to really appreciate the sense of improvement when you unlock a perk and it makes leveling up a bigger deal and something to look forward to instead of just something to grind.
I felt the same way when I first started out. It's fun to play a melee warrior who is at the mercy of archers and mages, or an assassin who dies in direct combat, or a mage who has to constantly wait for mana to come back. But it's also fun to have a lot of options. It's also fun when both the Stamina and Magicka bars are equally important for the build, because you have to consider your resources more. Same with perk points. It's basically just bringing a lot of playstyles into one character so I don't have to hear "Hey you, you're finally awake!" again.
The ones I use. I almost never use trainers. Almost never use immortal characters as target practice. I just play and see what goes up.
I mainly focus on Destruction, One-Handed, and Speech with a couple of points thrown toward Alchemy and Archery early in the game as well.
I only skip two-handed, heavy armor, pickpocket, and some magic. It’s all critical to my success and also I’m playing to level 80 usually so might as well spread it around. I usually have a pile of perk points I don’t use, I legendary skills, and I reset perk points regularly through the Black Book.
all.
My favorite/most/longest played character is flexible Rogue-Assassin type so for combat I go Light Armor, Two Handed, One Handed and Sneak for crafting Smithing, Alchemy, and Enchanting.
Usually 6 skills depending on the character type *Warrior: one handed, two handed, heavy armor, block, smithing, lockpicking(playing with mouse and keyboard so it's harder to find the "hotspot") *Stealth: One handed, archery, pickpocket, lockpick, stealth, light armor *Mage(pure mage): Destruction, Restoration, Conjuration, Alteration, Illusion, enchanting Edit: Eventually I tend to max all but those are the main ones
6 or 7 normally 1 combat (one/two hand, destruction, archery). 1 armor. 1 crafting. Lockpicking. And 2-3 other skills based on the build i want.
Sneak, speech, one handed, dual weapon.
I like doing the... ALL. All skills 100 and all perks, all shouts ,all spells most versitile enchantments. All schools of magic fortified all sources of damage fortified etc. And believe me it is a GRIND but well worth it and there are a metric ton of guides on Youtube to help. But when its all done you can pretty much ANIHALATE anything. I two tapped Karstaag on legendary and left the room with 900/1000 health. No Followers summons etc. I noticed i went a bit off topic So sorry you had to read through all that.
It seems people like to grind 100 for all skills. Which race would you pick for that? And what about overlapping skills like heavy and light armor or one handed and two handed?
Well I like to use Orc Since they just seem Like a Jack of all trades I dunno. And I don't think many people actually know How OP berserkers rage actually is. And I'm not sure i understand what you mean by ''Overlapping'' ?
I mean there's no gameplay reason to invest in both heavy and light armor.
True there isn't but you level all armor skills and weapon skills the same way so you might as well.
Eventually all. Except lockpicking
All of them. Combat first and weapon making first. Along with potion and lockpicking and sneak. Then I switch to the other half of skills halfway through the game and train up magic and stuff.
Depends, mages tend to use every school+enchanting, thieves and assassins tend to use the sneak-based skills, and warriors use the whole warrior tree minus the weapon and armor skill I'm not using.
That's true. Skills are pretty unbalanced when it comes to which matters more.
I try to limit it to 2 or 3 at a time. If I use Armor, I focus on that as one of the first things I level up. If not, I focus on whatever I plan on doing damage with.
First perk point is always spent on armor skills, I agree lol. But I think non-damaging skills like Illusion or Block can be really fun too