Why does everything almost kill me?

[Captain Skinny]

So I'm coming off a hot run in Oblivion and just jumped into Skyrim for the first time since about a decade ago.
In Oblivion, I ran the age-old trick of maxing skills without actually leveling up, easing my gameplay nicely until I inevitably became an unstoppable whirlwind by the end of the game. I measured it out so the difficulty was right where I wanted it to be as a pretty casual playthrough and it went well, until just about the last gates when my power far outmatched my enemy and I was just destroying all but the most egregious of hordes with ease.
(I actually powerleveled like 5 times right before the Bruma fight... but that's another sad story for another time.)
Anyway, in Skyrim I wanted to avoid such an easy playthrough, and have been taking the leveling-ups as they came.
And everyone kicks my ass.
I'll run into a hagbane and she'll have me drink every potion on me. An ice saber cat does the same thing. I never have enough stamina to run a whole fight and every swing the guy takes makes him seem like he's drunk. I've also noticed it's going to be hard having a multi build character (one handed/destruction, I know I am an original) because the skill tree is so slow to cover.
Am I doing it wrong? Is there a simple misstep I have been taking? Or do I just need to get good?

Oddly enough, dragons? Not that bad.

[jreese46]

Are you using your perks in your combatives? Also, working on your alchemy, smithing, and enchanting as well? They all go pretty much hand in hand, but it seems the enemies get considerably harder about every 10 levels or so. If you're missing a component (perks in your 1h/armor skills, enchanted armor and weapons, upsmithing, etc.) then you will experience that sudden boost of difficulty every so often.

Meanwhile, don't forget conjuration. You can let your flame atronach set them on fire for you, while you keep healing spells or a shield in hand. When you do use destruction, short burst of fire and hit them while they're burning.

[Melkolf]

Always found the first 10 level ups crucial in only adding to key combat skills and raising related perks. I don't touch any crafting until early mid game - I know, it's not acceptable power gaming strategy but I simply don't power game to that extent.

Whenever this happens to me it's usually because I've veered away from that discipline and done too much early alchemy, enchanting or smithing, or even too much selling to lift speech too high.

Of course, you could be using any number of mods that unbalance the game to the extent you describe.

There's also the simple option - reduce difficulty. Whenever a PC gets too unbalanced I do that for a while to rebalance things.

[Bloodwest]

Most units keep scaling with player up to level 50 so unless you get a level way higher than that, poorly optimized builds put you in bad spot.

[danconnors]

There's this thing I call running away when I see the fight's too tough. Meanwhile I level up my smithing and enchanting as fast as I can. For combat skills I pick on low level undead--draugur to start with. You can fight with one of those things for quite a while, getting your blocking, and armor skills up while practicing your restoration spell casting.

[Captain Skinny]

So it seems like the memes of making 300 iron daggers to sell to Alvor really is the way to go.
But how does one grind enchanting? I've only gotten points by unenchanting items and I think uses soul gems does it too?
Really though, I'm not a grinder by nature, and because of that I was worried I would inherently fall behind, as perhaps the devs expect people to grind certain skills.

[jreese46]

The way I do it is to hoard every petty and lesser soul gem I can find (sigil stones in my case, using a mod). At level 23, I go on the hunt for the banish weapon (of expelling.) Disenchant that and use petty and lesser gems to enchant all the looted weapons (or daggers, if you want to combo grind) with banish. They should pop out worth around 1800ish gold. Then take them around and sell them for all the gold the merchants have, buy whatever components/toys/gems from them, sell them some more. Leave with all their money, all their gems, all the components you need, and maybe some new stuff to disenchant or wear. Works best if you've got speech to 50 and taken the merchant perk, as you can clean out the mages at the college of all their spells, training, and grand gems too. Then you have sufficient (or extra) gems for when you want to enchant your own gear.

[Siddha]

As Melkolf says above if you are not careful and focused in what you choose at level ups in the early game you can start to have difficulty by level 15 or thereabouts. Make sure to focus on your core combat skills and defenses in the early levels.

[ralphtobybob]

Автор сообщения: Cynocephalus I

So it seems like the memes of making 300 iron daggers to sell to Alvor really is the way to go.
But how does one grind enchanting? I've only gotten points by unenchanting items and I think uses soul gems does it too?
Really though, I'm not a grinder by nature, and because of that I was worried I would inherently fall behind, as perhaps the devs expect people to grind certain skills.

You lose money making iron daggers. I go for the iron armor. I get my daggers mostly from roadkill. I save them and use the petty and lesser soul gems to enchant them. If I have a lot of cheap or greaters, I use them too. I use the commons for recharging until my enchantment level is high enough to get double digit level enchantments.
Most of the found enchanted weapons and staffs hold less than a grand or greater charge.

Even if I have only a few known weapons enchantments, I crank out enchanted daggers. The higher the value of the enchantment, the more XP you get, from what I understand.

So an Absorb Health enchantment gives more XP than an elemental enchantment. For wearables, Fortify Sneak is worth more than Waterbreathing.

I try to avoid barrows until I have a lot of lesser soul gems. Eventually I use only a weapon that has at least a soul trap enchantment and ignore the 'no soul gem big enough' message.

I've never made enchantment legendary before, but when I do, I'm going to make an enchanted item for every enchantment my character knows, then disenchant them to get a head start after making the skill legendary.





I hit the mines too for ore and gems.

[ralphtobybob]

Автор сообщения: danconnors

There's this thing I call running away when I see the fight's too tough. Meanwhile I level up my smithing and enchanting as fast as I can. For combat skills I pick on low level undead--draugur to start with. You can fight with one of those things for quite a while, getting your blocking, and armor skills up while practicing your restoration spell casting.

My very first playthrough, I played it like Oblivion focusing on non combat skills like Speech and Alchemy.

Got eaten by wolves on the 7000 steps over and over again. Now I use perks for one and two handed and armor first until those skills hit level 20.

[HellSlayer]

Depends on build and mods, but you can try conjuration, level up until you can cast frost atronach, so one hand shield another hand free for casting. Its fun... somewhat safe build.

[danconnors]

Eaten by wolves? I've never had that problem, and I play at expert level. At this time my latest character is at level 22, and she is able to dispatch regular trolls. I specialize in light armor, swords, and bows, and I make the best of those I am able. I don't mess with magic very much, except enchanting and healing. But I haven't even tried the 7k steps yet. I make it a point not to fight my first dragon until I'm at least level 30, and have my fire and ice protections up to at least 100.

[Melkolf]

Автор сообщения: Cynocephalus I

But how does one grind enchanting? I've only gotten points by unenchanting items and I think uses soul gems does it too?

Dead simple - unenchant everything you don't actually use as you find them. One can get up to 50-60 level Enchant in next to no time, usually by about PC level 20.

I did this once across the first 20 levels of a mage build and found myself completely under strength and incapable of defeating just about everything. (Same is true with the early cheap smithing grind of iron anything, other than cash loss daggers.)

Now I simply store enchanted items and filled gems for that mid-game enchanting splurge.

Only things I disenchant early is a certain fiery soul trap axe and the first item with waterbreathing. Enchant second best weapon and a ring or necklace and forget about enchanting for ages. Never been under-strength since.

Edit: And yes, never be afraid of running away. It's a real life saver!

[alexander_dougherty]

Автор сообщения: Cynocephalus I

I'll run into a hagbane and she'll have me drink every potion on me. An ice saber cat does the same thing. I never have enough stamina to run a whole fight and every swing the guy takes makes him seem like he's drunk.

Oddly enough, dragons? Not that bad.

Saber cats, especially the ice sabercats, are tough to fight, I'm usually in ebony armour or better and level 40+ before I'm happy taking them on.
Hags require enchantments to resist their magics, like mages.

As others have said put the perks into combat related skills, get some better gear, and enchant stuff to do more damage and resist magic/fire/ice/lightning.

[Melkolf]

Sabre cats??!? Run for your life. Bears pack a punch too. Avoid like the plague.

Or a simple calm spell suitably buffed by a couple of perks also helps. Gives one a head start in the run...

[Captain Skinny]

Running goes against so many of my TES instincts... but I guess they gave you sprint for a reason. I've been disenchanting and reenchanting but I'm still not moving beyond 12 until I've done some growing up.
Sometimes I'll run into bandits and the like who will melt before even reaching me, and then other times I'll run into enemies who still smash me apart. Where's the discrepancy come from? Armor? Resistance to magic?