Ever Use Only Low Level Gear For the Entire Game

[Melletch]

For Roleplay or a challenge, has anyone kept an Iron Sword, Studded Leather, Bandit fur armor, or anything else of any sort of low level on their persons for the sake of challenge or asthetics? Maybe roleplay?

[Kazaanh]

Usually i copied the armor and tweaked the stats or created a invisible part of the armor that added "amor = daedric level" for example

or

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35986/?

[Melletch]

Originally posted by Kazaanh:

Usually i copied the armor and tweaked the stats or created a invisible part of the armor that added "amor = daedric level" for example

or

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/35986/?

That makes some sense. To be able to ask for improvements at a price.

But have you ever tried to get iron sword to legendary? I'm curious at how well it will do. Mostly I've tested playing on legendary difficulty with an iron sword...and I cannot do legendary difficulty too long.

[Eisenfell]

while weapons continue to suck... you can upgrade low-armor to cap

someone did the math it was like 100 smithing and somewhat around +145%Smithing improvement to reach armor cap with simple steel armor.


personally once i reach enchanting 100 i just go the free destruction/always staggers enemy route and stay in steel armor with a enchanted mage hood for style.

[lupus_hegemonia]

Usually I'm using simple staff; the mod-set I'm playing (from other guy, a 400+ mods' set: "STMP", you can YouTube it), has already a SUPERB pack of equipment available (because that guy made his set extreme difficult; okay, you can reduce the difficulty but still is VERY difficult. But I'm not using it, it's quite "cheating", with some "Black Arrows" with... 250 damage each (any dragon drops dead with a single hit of these arrows)!

...But, even so, I'm simply looting dead enemies and keep going. Currently (at the... 17th time I re-started the game from the beginning!), at 13th level, I have a full plate armor, with a nice 38 axe or an echartered 40 sword, while in sneaking mode (which I love to play), I have that superb "Dark Brotherhood" set, looted from their leader.

My companions (Recorder, Sofia & Lydia), they have about the same staff.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Melletch:

For Roleplay or a challenge, has anyone kept an Iron Sword, Studded Leather, Bandit fur armor, or anything else of any sort of low level on their persons for the sake of challenge or asthetics? Maybe roleplay?

Most low level gear looks terrible imo, steel weapons are ok, but steel armour rubs me the wrong way (visually that is), and iron looks dreadful for both weapons and armour.

Leather armour looks ok for a while, but the Glass armour looks so much better, i'm indifferent to elven armour btw. Fur armour is to some peoples tastes, but not mine.

Elven weapons look ok though, and I can imagine trying to hold onto those for a while.

[Melletch]

Most historical folks prefer the iron for the fact it looks completely like a Viking Sword. I did it just to see how well I did. I like Steel Weapons to an extent, but something about them keeps me moving on. Go Leather. Actually trying to do just Leather and Iron GreatSword right now.

[Melletch]

Are there any weaker spell variations people consider tactically useful later on still, whether a concentration or firebolt spell. I used to just use firebolt a lot because you could afford it to just keep staggering them.

[Petrus Magnus]

Originally posted by Melletch:

For Roleplay or a challenge, has anyone kept an Iron Sword, Studded Leather, Bandit fur armor, or anything else of any sort of low level on their persons for the sake of challenge or asthetics? Maybe roleplay?

It is entirely doable. I do it all the time as almost all Skyrim's default armor and weapons look historical inaccurate, disproportionately sized, gaudy, functionally unusable and potentially dangerous to their users. It is like the artists never set toe in a museum...

Most "next level" armor and weapons are only a few points more powerful then what you are replacing. If you do any alchemy/smithing/enchanting at all you can easily compensate for the difference. Maxing out alchemy/smithing/enchanting will give even low level equipment absurd stats and when coupled with sneak and poison you can one shot almost anything in the game no mods required.

For example I have an old screenshot (I would upload it but steam cloud is giving me an error at the moment) of a hunting bow that can do ~500 damage and that is before I even maxed out the alchemy/enchanting loop.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Melletch:

Most historical folks prefer the iron for the fact it looks completely like a Viking Sword. I did it just to see how well I did. I like Steel Weapons to an extent, but something about them keeps me moving on. Go Leather. Actually trying to do just Leather and Iron GreatSword right now.

I appreciate it looks historical, just not very nice. Historically most swords looked rough, but this game has technology level equivalent to pre-renaissance, and swords should look a bit more polished than the iron does.

[Melletch]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Originally posted by Melletch:

Most historical folks prefer the iron for the fact it looks completely like a Viking Sword. I did it just to see how well I did. I like Steel Weapons to an extent, but something about them keeps me moving on. Go Leather. Actually trying to do just Leather and Iron GreatSword right now.

I appreciate it looks historical, just not very nice. Historically most swords looked rough, but this game has technology level equivalent to pre-renaissance, and swords should look a bit more polished than the iron does.

Uhh...I don't know. See, I get the combination of mail and Plate, and remind everyone that there is no such thing as the renaissance or medieval period in this world's history. The tech actually seems Early Medieval to me. I agree on the polish though. But we think of things as paralell and linear to our own history, and this may not neccessarily be true, especially in Timeless Lands, with technology that is identical throughout history. This is true of our own history, for the majority of it, as it has been the spear, sword, and shield for more than guns and modern technology.

[Melletch]

Originally posted by Petrus Magnus:

Originally posted by Melletch:

For Roleplay or a challenge, has anyone kept an Iron Sword, Studded Leather, Bandit fur armor, or anything else of any sort of low level on their persons for the sake of challenge or asthetics? Maybe roleplay?

It is entirely doable. I do it all the time as almost all Skyrim's default armor and weapons look historical inaccurate, disproportionately sized, gaudy, functionally unusable and potentially dangerous to their users. It is like the artists never set toe in a museum...

Most "next level" armor and weapons are only a few points more powerful then what you are replacing. If you do any alchemy/smithing/enchanting at all you can easily compensate for the difference. Maxing out alchemy/smithing/enchanting will give even low level equipment absurd stats and when coupled with sneak and poison you can one shot almost anything in the game no mods required.

For example I have an old screenshot (I would upload it but steam cloud is giving me an error at the moment) of a hunting bow that can do ~500 damage and that is before I even maxed out the alchemy/enchanting loop.

Dude....Use the Longbow next time. They shoot faster a bit.

Okay, be careful here. Look up the Abyssian Sword. It is a real historical sword. Then look up some African Swords, Chinese Spears, the Flamberd Sword, and you will get my point by then.

I am a fiction writer who studies movie/story myths to bust them a littel differently than most people. The other day I confirmed in the year of a thousand A.D. perhaps the term Broadsword is still technically appropiate. There are many who try to quote history to try to defeat fiction. But the problem is its self-defeating. Warriors didn't care about our limits and nitpicking about "practical" refering to what we think is rediculous or not a part of a certain style, reinterpreted by modern practices.

The Orcish sword does have a strange, but perhaps useful, hook for catching a blade's edge to protect the fingers. Outside of the game, in the real universe, this may drop hints to a style we do not see. But the ragged edge is no worse than some other crazy swords, including sickle swords, and a Chinese spear blade that had seven cactus-like branches on it. There are references to other barbed, probably weird looking spears.

Everyone complains about the thickness and width of the blades, but even the Imperial Sword's comparison, the Gladius, is a little weird in itself. Plus, Machete, Schimitar, Falchion, and others are wide or perhaps wider. Look up the Grecean meat cleavers they used to carry. Plus, axeblades still work, even if shaped like a sword in thickness or width.

Telegraphing wasn't a thing people worried about back then. Spinning comes from China, and we still don't know why they did it. Tell you what's crazy, real vikings did carry two swords at times and used the horn of the axe to thrust at people. That's the tip of the axe blade. Cool, and you wish you could do it in Nord gear! They also had techniques to purposefully blund enemy blades, and threw clothing over weapons to dull and weigh them down to disarm people. Pacifist playthrough for real people? Its like the bucket trick for stealing, ha ha ha!

Some swords people have written off as fantasy, even though they are historical. People caught spears and threw them back, rode the spears down hills like a ski or sled and cut two people with their sword, sat on a hill and fought and won. They jumped over spears! Nobody cared about our version of practicality, and realistically, its about what's physical possibility, not personal choice and preference, which varies, and both work at times. Some of our modern ideals are like meta for a very broad and precisely balanced game called warfare. From different soldiers who are trained and think differently about full-auto gunfire's practicality, to our question about Skyrim's realism. Its self-contained, not dependent, but rather very much condemning, of our physical and historical reality, the same way ours does in reverse.

And as for disproportioned beyond some subtleties compared our world, it actually is pretty great for human hands. Weight and speed of attack may be off from our primary world comparisons on some of the "heavier" gear. But it is also reprasentive of true medieval combat, actually. Not what modern swordsmen think, but what the records say and show alongside with the records they put faith in.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Melletch:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

I appreciate it looks historical, just not very nice. Historically most swords looked rough, but this game has technology level equivalent to pre-renaissance, and swords should look a bit more polished than the iron does.

Uhh...I don't know. See, I get the combination of mail and Plate, and remind everyone that there is no such thing as the renaissance or medieval period in this world's history. The tech actually seems Early Medieval to me. I agree on the polish though. But we think of things as paralell and linear to our own history, and this may not neccessarily be true, especially in Timeless Lands, with technology that is identical throughout history. This is true of our own history, for the majority of it, as it has been the spear, sword, and shield for more than guns and modern technology.

I agree that Nirn hasn't had a medieval or renaissance period, just using it as a label.

But I think the technology level is higher than you think, admittedly the most advance weapons technology is medieval, but they have water wheels, saw pits, printing presses, ships equivalent to the Tudor warships, and much more. So it's a random mix or medieval and post-renaissance technology levels, I went for just before the renaissance as the average, but that's opinion not fact.

[lupus_hegemonia]

Believe me, after 400+ hrs gaming Skyrim, I found extra-super-ouaou gear very... "cheating" and stopped enjoying any more. For instance, I'm maybe Nord-"tank"-melee warrior (my character), but I like sneaking fighting (with bow). I found (due mods) to craft these notorious "Black Arrows" - they have... 250 damage each and cost 1000 gold each!!!!!!
So... it's a ONE-SHOT-KILL to a dragon! WHAT'S THE FUN with it?! Sneaking a dragon, shooting from 200 yards... and instantly killing him. What's the point? Type... "tgm" and play, then!

...So, I dropped/sold/kept (in chests) most of the top-gear armor/weapons and keep fighting with the best "Vanilla" gear I can find. Even crafting "Dragonscale" armor/weapons, is quite "cheat", but okay, without any magic on them, is "okay" to have them. (But as a "Ninja-like" fighter, they are too noisy and I want light weapons, so THE BEST TO ME are from "Black Brotherhood").

[hawkeye]

Water wheels, saw pits, large ships all existed in BC times.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by hawkeye:

Water wheels, saw pits, large ships all existed in BC times.

Not the same type of water wheels, or saw pits, or large ships.

The water wheels shown in game are definately post renaissance, the old saw pits required men, not machinery, and those large ships in game are definately based on English warships, design is too modern for old navies, apart from the walk ways, those are just convenience.

My examples were based on things I know to be too modern for medieval or dark ages, i watch far too many history documentaries for that.