New players tips section on forums?

For all the new players to the series maybe a place for tips for us to enjoy and learn? Also thanks for the tips in the podcast. Thought maybe this would be area where everyone could also chime in

Thanks

Quick Grinding/Leveling Tip:

If you want to level-up Conjuration quickly, kill something (this doesn't work on dragons) & THEN cast "Soul Trap" over & over & over.

If you are a thief and are trying to improve your pickpocket...make sure you only pickpocket 1 item, then leave the person's inventory screen, then go and pickpocket again, essentially 1 item at a time. Pickpocketing multiple items at once does not raise the level of that skill for everything taken, only for 1 item.

Sheesh, did I just butcher that explanation or what?

Here's a little tip that really makes things a lot easier when you've just started a new character, and are now derping around Riverwood totally broke wondering what to do next.

1. Get a job: Go over to the sawmill, pick up a woodcutter's axe, and just start chopping firewood. It'll take some in-game hours, but just keep spamming that action until you're laden with firewood. Then walk over to Hod, the sawmill operator (either on the sawmill during the day, or in his house mornings and evenings) and sell him all your firewood. He has unlimited gold, unlike a merchant, and will buy all the wood you sell him. You can make hundreds of gold a day doing this, if you're patient.

2. Buy some ingots and hide, smith some better armor than the tissue paper you start the game with. You'll level smithing a little bit, and get some better protection for the first quests you do.

3. Go talk to Faendal and get a little quest where you deliver a fake letter to Camilla Valerius in the trading post, to solve a love triangle problem with the bard, Sven. If you do that in Faendal's favor, you get him as your first follower. Having a follower at the beginning of the game is great for dungeon diving when you're still a low-level character.

4. Finally, talk to Lucan Valerius in the trading post, and get the Golden Claw quest. This will take you to Bleak Falls Barrow (not too far away from Riverwood), which also turns out to be the start of both the main and Civil War storylines. Pick up ALL THE LOOT. You're off and running!

argybargy wrote:If you are a thief and are trying to improve your pickpocket...make sure you only pickpocket 1 item, then leave the person's inventory screen, then go and pickpocket again, essentially 1 item at a time. Pickpocketing multiple items at once does not raise the level of that skill for everything taken, only for 1 item.

OOOH! An add-on to that tip:
Go to the Riften Jail & pickpocket the Sibbi guy (or whatever his name is). He can't turn on you!

Tip for xbox and PS3
Find the White River Watch bandit camp just east of White Run. Just inside the cave entrance you will find a bandit named Ulfr who is blind. When you enter the cave he will mistake you for a guy named Rodulf...play along! Position yourself directly behind Ulfr with your back to the wall and go into sneak mode. How get a rubber band and band your thumb stick so that you are continously walking backward in stealth mode against the wall. Leave the controler on the couch and go get a sandwich.

You will level up sneak to 100 before you know it!

OOH! NICE! Old-skool grinding (videogame-wise)!

Hmmm.. are y'all wanting more "level-up" tips or are you wanting more "watch out for this, or else this will happen" tips?

(Sky)Rim Tip: If you get married & your spouse dies, you cannot remarry.

Rim Tip: In the Daedric quest with the dog, (if you're looking to get the Daedric Artifacts / Oblivion Walker achievement), don't accept the offer to take the mace.

Rim Tip: wait... crap. I'll need to get on my laptop instead of my phone to write that because I probably need to add a "spoiler" tag... if I remember... nevermind.

Rim Tip: If playing on XBox & have a keyboard with a USB port, hook it up to the console to make renaming weapons a helluvalot easier. Fortify Enchantment potions have a time-limit, so this helps!

Dealing with Trolls at low level
You need a plan cuz the trolls will kick your ass every time at low level! This is the strategy that works for me and I am a bow focused sneaky guy.

You need to create some paralysis poison. Find or buy canis root and swamp fungal pods. Mix these together and you get paralysis poison. With low level alchemy skill you may only get three seconds of effect but anything helps.

When you see that troll coming dose your bow and hit him. In the time it takes for him to fall over and recover you can pump many more arrows into him. If you have to, dose the weapon again and rinse and repeat till you are collecting the fat! This strategy works great with a bow but could also work with any melee weapon you can apply poison to. This could make all the difference in the world on the first trip up the 7000 stairs.

Mistress Lebeau wrote:or are you wanting more "watch out for this, or else this will happen" tips?

Example: If you decide to do the "Break of Dawn" quest to obtain the Dawnbreaker sword? And you're a melee character less than level 20?

...

...

...

... DON'T.

Seriously, the necromancer Malkoran, who is the boss at the end of that quest, will one-hit kill you with an ice bazooka. Over and over and over again. You need a ranged attack, you need sneak, you need patience, and above all, you need thermonuclear weapons. No, wait, that's not in the game unless you have a mod. I mean, you need fire breath or something that will wear him down, because he's got a health bar that stretches from here to Belo Horizonte.

get a living area ASAP to store your stuff. The quickest route to this that I have found is getting to the college of winterhold as soon as possible. they will give you a free room after you pass a small magic test at the entrance. even if you don't want to be a mage you can still use this for the duration of the game without doing the rest of the college quest-line.

you can use the horse-drawn carriage at whiterun to travel to winterhold directly (or dawnstar if winterhold is not available), but definitely use the carriage - it is difficult trying to walk all the way to winterhold at early levels...

once you have storage containers, you can start to store things you want for later (i.e. alchemy ingredients, smithing supplies, armor, weapons, etc) instead of carrying them, which gives you more available carry weight for loot...

i seriously would nto do ANY daedra quests until level 30, some will let you log them / do them at 15 or 20 but trust me...wait until 30s.

Look up high in dark areas I got stuck in a area and it took me long time to get out of there. Crazy me didn't see the lever for a bridge.

That's why I'm a Skyrim Newbie lol

Joe Wilson wrote:i seriously would nto do ANY daedra quests until level 30, some will let you log them / do them at 15 or 20 but trust me...wait until 30s.

This man. He is wise.

I ended up against a Draugr Death Overlord with no spells at level 22 at one point, and no way out of the room I was in, and just had to give up. There was literally no way out of that.

I'll get my revenge on that guy later on with my new character, however.

EvilNerd wrote:Tip for xbox and PS3
Find the White River Watch bandit camp just east of White Run. Just inside the cave entrance you will find a bandit named Ulfr who is blind. When you enter the cave he will mistake you for a guy named Rodulf...play along! Position yourself directly behind Ulfr with your back to the wall and go into sneak mode. How get a rubber band and band your thumb stick so that you are continously walking backward in stealth mode against the wall. Leave the controler on the couch and go get a sandwich.

You will level up sneak to 100 before you know it!

If you want a cheat tip then,

when you start a new character your Guide will not turn on you untill your out of the cave. Make your way down to the cave with the bear, were your Guide gives you a bow and some arrows. After he gives you the Bow, he will start to fallow you. Don't wake the bear. Go back up to the spider den so you don't wake the bear by mistake. Once you kill the bear your Guide runs to get out of the cave.

Here you wale away on you Guide and he will do nothing to you, and you can't kill him. He will take a knee when his health drops low enough, and you get no skill points when he is down. Take a dager so you don't do to much damage to him at once, or your weapon of choice if you want a 2 handed weapon. You can use the bow but you don't have many arrows. Drop to sneak mode go behind the Guide and just Sneak Attack. You will get sneak to 100 very fast. You will also get your weapon skill up to about 35. You can use magic too, but there is no sneak attack for the magic. So, you will only build magic skill.

*Warning* This will put you around level 17 once you leave the cave. Your level will be high, but your gear low. You will see a Frost Troll on your way to Bleakfalls Borrow. And there is 1 Frost Troll inside now also. Take a bow with you with enough arrows to kill the troll. You have to pull a chain to open some bars into a cave. Once you find the Frost Troll in the cave, kite him back to these bars and pull the chain. The Frost Troll cant get to you, and you can shoot through the bars. If he starts running away open and pull him back, then close them again.

I found this out because after I had to delet my level 51 character on my Xbox, because of a glitch. When I started the new charater; I wanted to not play as the good Paladin. So, I was trying to kill my Guide for trying to cut off my head. It wasn't till my 4th character that I noticed you could go with a diffrent Guide to start off with.

Pick two forms of crafting and knock yourself out (I'd suggest smithing and enchanting) I'm level 100 in those. I was scared going up through the levels as a "crafter" I would suffer in battle but as a warrior if anything this has made me OP at the mid 30s level, I one hit most things with my legendary daedric sword.

Enchanting tip: look out for weapons with the "banish" enchant (banishes summoned dremora) this by far and away adds the most value to and enchanted weapon (ups the price of the lowliest of weapons to around 1k) then when you get to the level where you can add two enchants use "banish" and "absorb health" don't bother enchanting armour to sell, waste of soul gems as the profit from weapon enchanting far outstrips it.

Smithing tip: always buy iron ore it's ridiculously cheap and you need it for almost everything in smithing. If you have the money always buy the rarer ore or ingots when they pop up you can guarantee once you get to a level where you can use it it's nowhere to be found!

Lydia can't die in battle... Well that is she can't be killed by mobs. If she's dead on your game you probably killed her with some friendly fire....ice....lightning....arrow...axe, etc. I've read she's stuck at the level you meet her at, Ive had Lydia follow me since I was about level 12 I'm now level 36 and she's still formidable I have her decked out in full dragon heavy armour with an ebony sword. After a severe beating she'll go down to one knee to recover at this point you can kill her but mobs will lose interest in her almost as if they're saying "Awwwww!" once she's up to adequate health she'll start swinging again.... Unless you hit her then she'll just lie there and you're to blame. You killed her! You just killed Lydia you monster!!!......Sorry.

If enchanting "accessories", I've found that adding a Sneak enchantment will net more money than others.

Mistress Lebeau wrote:

Rim Tip: If playing on XBox & have a keyboard with a USB port, hook it up to the console to make renaming weapons a helluvalot easier. Fortify Enchantment potions have a time-limit, so this helps!

Mistress - I don't think it counts towards your 'potion' time when you are in the naming screen... I hang out in there as long as I want and still get the same number of enchants per potion... this gives me a good 'break' when I am trying to enchant 6 items with one Enchanter's Philer! I love this tip though - I hate navigating that screen with a controller - ugh...

Minus2Degrees wrote:

Joe Wilson wrote:i seriously would nto do ANY daedra quests until level 30, some will let you log them / do them at 15 or 20 but trust me...wait until 30s.

This man. He is wise.

I ended up against a Draugr Death Overlord with no spells at level 22 at one point, and no way out of the room I was in, and just had to give up. There was literally no way out of that.

I'll get my revenge on that guy later on with my new character, however.

If you get stuck really badly one option is to reload the level and then dial down the difficultly setting until you are able to fight your way out. I made the mistake of doing Azura's Star and low level and once you are in that dream sequence there is no way out without go back to a really old save. This got me unstuck although I was not exactly proud of it!

I took an even more cowardly way out: "~ kill".

Minus2Degrees wrote:I took an even more cowardly way out: "~ kill".

I am not judging you.

Get more of the good arrows!
Get a few ebony or even deadric arrows and travel to Solitude. Find the soldiers taking shooting practice in Castle Dour and wait until nightfall. The guards will return to their barracks and when they do, you sneak in and take all of their steel arrows using your pickpocket skills. Replace their steel arrows with only one ebony arrow each and then get the hell out of there.

Now, simply wait until morning and when they start shooting again they will shoot nothing but ebony or deadric arrows. Hang around the courtyard and take the arrows as they fire them...they never run out! These guys will should about 30 arrows an hour all day long so anytime you need a refill stop by for archery practice.

EvilNerd wrote:Get more of the good arrows!
Get a few ebony or even deadric arrows and travel to Solitude. Find the soldiers taking shooting practice in Castle Dour and wait until nightfall. The guards will return to their barracks and when they do, you sneak in and take all of their steel arrows using your pickpocket skills. Replace their steel arrows with only one ebony arrow each and then get the hell out of there.

Now, simply wait until morning and when they start shooting again they will shoot nothing but ebony or deadric arrows. Hang around the courtyard and take the arrows as they fire them...they never run out! These guys will should about 30 arrows an hour all day long so anytime you need a refill stop by for archery practice.

wow - great tip - tx... I love daedric arrows and they are hard to come by!

If anyone steals your sweetroll..... kill them and their family.

Don't give them the chance to breed or raise anymore sweetroll thieves.


I R SRS.

EvilNerd wrote:Get more of the good arrows!
Get a few ebony or even deadric arrows and travel to Solitude. Find the soldiers taking shooting practice in Castle Dour and wait until nightfall. The guards will return to their barracks and when they do, you sneak in and take all of their steel arrows using your pickpocket skills. Replace their steel arrows with only one ebony arrow each and then get the hell out of there.

Now, simply wait until morning and when they start shooting again they will shoot nothing but ebony or deadric arrows. Hang around the courtyard and take the arrows as they fire them...they never run out! These guys will should about 30 arrows an hour all day long so anytime you need a refill stop by for archery practice.

Holy hell, that's brilliant!