Caves, Ruins, Forts etc.

[Zeddy]

For every cave, ruin, etc is there a specific quest in which you have to explore them or are most just there for your own exploration?

[Battle Brother Gygax]

If im not wrong, there are not quests for every place, some caves, for example, have small narrative inside (for example, someone who bought the cave searching for gold but never found anything and starved to death). And also, there are passages that go through mountains.
What can be said is that every place has content apart from the looting/killing or some kind of narrative. (Excepting passages and similar places, since its function is to ease the movement through the map.)

[Moonjunk]

All forts have a quest. I think all ruins have quests*, and I THINK* caves have quests, either side or misc






*Citation Needed

[Docsprock]

It doesnt really matter. You can explore all you want. If a particular cave/tomb has an important role in a specific quest, it will simply not be accessable until the quest is activated.

Major questlines dont normally break from exploring, but there are a couple of minor quests that could be rendered undoable.

[Justice]

Still it kinda ruining quest experimence when you clear the area or discovered something that you supposed to do when actually doing the quest. Otherwise you would travel through the empy cave/fortress or already got the quest item in your pocket.

[Zeddy]

Thanks for all the info guys, appreciate it! :)

[Bomb Bloke]

Many places have quests that can only be started by actually entering them.

Places which have quests that can be started elsewhere will typically find an excuse to assign them once you're inside.

Exceptions are rare, but as Docsprock says, those locations will lock you out completely until you have the pre-requisite quest anyway.

The only quests I'm aware of which'll send you back into places you've already cleared out are the "radiant" ones, where the game pretty much just picks a place for you to go randomly. Though I suspect there's a mechanism there which at least tries to pick places you haven't been to yet, if any are available.

In short, if you see a place, feel free to go in right then and there.

[Perfectly Valid School of Magic]

Sometimes quests will take you to caves and forts (like kill Bnadits at X or find Y in Z), but not every location has a specific misison in there. That would've cost a lot more time and money than already put into the game (which they had to cut some stuff out due to time restraints)

[Rogue]

There are probably 5 times as many non-quest caves, locations and forts than quests. If you do stumble upon a quest location it will not interfere with the quest. For instance, if you go to Bleak Falls and get the stone tablet after escaping Helgan, Ferringar's text will change and he will acknowledge that you already have it. Others work the same. As said. some places simply aren't there until you start the quest for that spot.

The only complaint I have is that the reward for clearing a cave is so poor. Chests, some requiring Expert lockpick give up 3 gold? Not worth the effort. You spend an hour (reatime) clearing a cave and exit with 120 gold. Ringy dingy.

[Moonjunk]

Originally posted by Old Codger:

There are probably 5 times as many non-quest caves, locations and forts than quests. If you do stumble upon a quest location it will not interfere with the quest. For instance, if you go to Bleak Falls and get the stone tablet after escaping Helgan, Ferringar's text will change and he will acknowledge that you already have it. Others work the same. As said. some places simply aren't there until you start the quest for that spot.

The only complaint I have is that the reward for clearing a cave is so poor. Chests, some requiring Expert lockpick give up 3 gold? Not worth the effort. You spend an hour (reatime) clearing a cave and exit with 120 gold. Ringy dingy.

Why waste lock picks on expert chests when you can just get the tower stone

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Danche11:

For every cave, ruin, etc is there a specific quest in which you have to explore them or are most just there for your own exploration?

A mixture of the two, some have quests, or are involved in quests, but most are not.
But some of the most amusing quests are only found by going into caves.

[DrSuperEvil]

Some just exist, have a boss/boss chest, while others can never be completed.