I make a bunch of iron daggers, then upgrade them to superior and finally enchant them with paralyze. What’s great is that this builds up your skills quickly and the daggers are easily sold at most vendors, plus the don’t cost so much that vendors can’t afford them.
I’d love if the game were intelligent enough that the huge influx of enchanted weapons would mean common bandits now had them.
I re-rolled a new character last night. I levelled too fast on my first character from too much crafting. Here’s my new plan to get rich, from various sources (online and the gaming guide).
- I won’t activate the Mage stone like I did last time to keep my levelling under control while I enchant a bunch of daggers. I might activate the Thief stone to enhance my speech gains, but it also enhances alchemy. Here’s what each of the first three stones you encounter fortify:
The Warrior
Archery
Block
Heavy Armor
One-Handed
Two Handed
Smithing
The Thief
Alchemy
Light Armor
Lockpicking
Pickpocket
Sneak
Speech
The Mage
Alteration
Conjuration
Destruction
Illusion
Restoration
Enchanting
Before bartering I’ll raise my speech to get better buy/sell prices:
- Pray at an alter of Dibella (+10 speech)
- Give alms to the poor (+10 speech)
- Equip a Necklace of Haggle (if available - found item only). I don’t plan to disenchant any Necklaces of Haggle, since you can only enchant other necklaces with this spell, i.e. I can’t make a “bartering suit”.
- Equip the Thieve’s Guild hood (+10 speech)
- Brew and drink a potion of Fortify Barter
- Butterfly Wing (2)
- Dragon’s Tongue (2)
- Hagraven Claw (4)
- Tundra Cotton (4)
- Invest half of my profits in a low-risk mutual fund and buy Imperial bonds with thirty percent of the remainder. Buy a Gladiator team and head to Cyrodil with the rest.
If you’re going to go through all that trouble, you can get the masque of Clavicus Vile pretty early on for a +20 boost to haggling.
Heck, Pine Fresh Scent, why? Looting all the gold merchants have is easy. The hard past is not winding up with a pile of unsaleable junk afterwards.
I haven’t finished it yet, but my reasons for preferring Azura are not roleplaying so much as Nelacar is a twat.
Aside: I found Barbas, and everything online suggests he becomes an obnoxious follower. However, I seem to have lost him. My intuition and the journal suggest he might’ve headed to the shrine on his own. Is there a way to force him to follow?
Well, yeah. Sadly, I’ve heard that the game bugged the Star and that the Black Star works for human and creature souls alike. And of course, all human souls are worth the same.
When I did the quest he was waiting at certain locations instead of following me around (Possibly because I had already cleared out the quest areas.), but you can track his whereabouts if you set the quest to active.
I might have to play “hunt the arrow” then. I searched for the quest (“J,” highlight the quest, “M”) and it pointed to the middle of some southern mountains, presumably the shrine. No marker to be seen.
I also lost Meeko, although some console commands showed he was alive… somewhere (back to the shack). One thing I wish they took from New Vegas was the popup that tells you if a follower dies.
I completed the whole quest chain with him. There are at least two different ways to end it… but there is a point where he follows you instead of leading you. It got annoying, because he followed too closely. He began shoving my character around, and I think it’s because the “follow” point seems to be set way too close to the player-character’s.
Barbas quest spoiler:
[spoiler] The very last quest in the chain, a daedra lord wants you to fetch an axe and bring it back to “him” (who is speaking through a statue/shrine). When you go to fetch the axe, Barbas is now on follow instead of lead. When you turn the axe in, the daedra lord says that if you want to keep the (mediocre) axe, you must kill Barbas with it. If you decline to kill barbas, the daedra lord keeps both Barbas and the axe. (Barbas disappears, and a dog appears as part of the statue/shrine.)
So if you want to keep the dog permanently, I assume you must not complete this last step in the chain.[/spoiler]
Anyone else gotten married?
Who did you pick as your SO?
I’ve got the necessary… equipment to get married but haven’t settled on anyone yet, because I’m afraid I’ll find someone better. so far I’ve only extensively visited Riften, Whiterun and Karthwasten.
My favorites so far are Adrianne from Whiterun, the bard girl in the town at the foot of the huge mountain where the grey beards live, and the break in expert at the Thieves guild.
I don’t think ANY of those can be married though 
Maybe if I kill Adrianne’s husband…
This page lists all the known marriageable NPCs and what they offer.
I finally got the house in Markarth. I had to fetch a shield of his [the Jarl’s] ancestors from some forsaken scum (who kicked my butt, twice. Thank god for my “save early, save often” policy).
The house cost 8000, plus another three or four for the decorations. It’s got a training dummy that you can display armor sets on! It came with an enchanting table and an alchemy table. Several weapon display cases. My only complaint is that it’s a little further from the blacksmith area than it needs to be to be perfect. Nice looking flat, though.
Tonight, I’ll do the quest to get proclaimed “Thane” of Markarth, and I’ll get a Housecarl to watch my loot.
Anybody else get hung up for half a second at the top of the stairs (going up) in the house in Whiterun? You would think that I could find someone to fix that top step, dammit. But noOOOo.
oooh I like Mjoll the lioness. I guess I should go look for that blasted sword of hers.
What is the best house in the game? The one in Whiterun only has an alchemy table, but it’s right next door to Arianne which has a full set of forge equipment, including a smelter.
I like that the house in Markath has an enchantment board too.
Anyone know how good the other houses are?
Sorry, I haven’t found the other houses yet.
List. Windhelm is arguably the best. If you’re not faction-committed, then Markarth.
I like Mjoll a lot. I traveled with Lydia for a little bit, but tired of her quickly and sent her back to Whiterun. Just give her some Heavy Armor and a big ass sword and she’s happy.
I’ve been giving her my hand-me-downs, (recently upgraded to Daedric equipment and gave her my complete set of Ebony Armor and matching greatsword and bow), and she’s been surprisingly effective.
A note about her quest though, her sword is in the middle of a Dwemer ruin, (I think she tells you this when you first meet her in Riften), which can be a serious slog for a lower level character. According to the wiki the sword doesn’t even appear until your level 14.
Dumb question, I’ve been wondering about marrying followers. If they continue to travel with you do you still get the ‘perks’ of marriage or do they have to stay in one place?
I own the houses in Whiterun, Markarth, Windhelm, and Riften. Of the four I like the one in Windhelm the most, it’s big and spacious with both an alchemy table and a enchanters table. It also has lots of displays for weapons and armor so you can admire your trophies. 
The house in Whiterun is the most convenient to a blacksmith and other merchants, though the house in Riften is pretty close to that city’s market as well.
Proudspire Manor in Solitude is the most expensive at 25,000 before upgrades, but I haven’t seen it so I’m not sure what all it has.
Modders will undoubtedly come up with bigger more intricate houses over the next few months for the PC version. It’s actually one of the things I’m most interested in seeing.
Jeez. For that kinda money, it better come with a concubine.