After experimenting a lot, it seems to usually, but not always, have a problem with remembering a hotkeyed item that is in a stack.
I’ve never had it forget a hotkey on a spell or shout, but weapons, shields & potions lose the assigned number with distressing frequency.
Heh…and one thing that really ticked me off was when King Olaf used a shout that disarmed me…I eventually found my shield, but the weapon I had been using was just gone. Fortunately, the bard’s ghost finished him off, and he was carrying an even better weapon.
I don’t really seem to “get” Alchemy. I see that you can eat an ingredient to get its primary effect, but apparently there are three other effects. How does one work out these? Can you or is that a trial and error thing? If it is all about trial and error, any tips on how to go about it?
Ok, I became a werewolf. It is super easy in this one. You can do it pretty early on. As far as I can tell the only drawback is you can’t get the “rested” bonus for sleeping, but get the ability. It is also a little annoying because you can’t loot or even examine while shifted. No idea if you can become a were-vampire or not.
Anyone know if there is a way to equip more than one ring?
Yeah it’s trial and error. Mix 2 ingredients together and if they have an effect in common that you didn’t know about it’ll pop up a window saying something like "Discovered property: ". Then that property will be added to the ingredient’s description so you know it in the future. If they have no properties in common a Potion Failed message pops up instead. And the ingredient combo will be greyed out in the mix screen so you don’t have to memorize all fail combos the game remembers them for you.
My strategy has been just to take the ingredient I have to most of and run down the entire list mixing it with everything once to see what new effects I learn. Then to do the same with the one I have the next most of over and over again. After burning through all the ingredients I’ve collected testing for unknown properties about 4 times I’ve learnt around 3 properties on average for all the more common ingredients and can make useful potions reliably now.
I haven’t played Skyrim yet, but in the other games, as your alchemy skills increase you get to see the other effects. Make lots of potions to increase your skill.
Picked up Skyrim yesterday and I’m having a blast with it. The game is beautiful to look at for the most part, (character models look a little stiff and unpolished, but that’s characteristic of Bethesda games).
I messed around with Morrowind and Oblivion back in the day and I loved those games as well but it’s been years since I played either one and I have a couple of technical questions I was hoping someone could clear up for me…
Is there any way to un-nock an arrow that’s already been drawn? I hold the key to fire the arrow and my target moves, I want to be able to drop my bow without firing the arrow but I usually just end up firing the arrow into the ground.
Also can anyone explain exactly how damage from normal weapons is calculated? For example, I have a ‘greatsword of cold’ that says it does a base damage of 23 plus it says it does 5 points of cold damage. Does that mean it’s effective damage is 28? Or is that 5 points figured into the base damage? Is this sword doing the same amount of damage as a weapon that lists it base damage as 28?
I’m talking to the smith in Riverwood who has a hammer that lists it’s base damage as 27 and the little damage indicator number at the bottom of the screen, that lists the damage of your currently equipped weapon, is saying that hammer will increase my damage by ‘+8’. I’m not quite sure how the game is arriving at that number.
That’s basically what I do. It also helps if you assume that something like “putrid rat meat” and “rotting daedroth groin” both have “damage health” or other stat properties. Or mushrooms might be negative, too.
To un-nock, use the sheath key, “R” on PC.
Unless they changed it in this game, the added elemental damage is ON TOP OF the weapon’s base damage. So the sword would do more damage than the non-elemental equivalent, unless the enemy resists or even absorbs frost, in which can it could be worse.
+8 at the shop would mean it is 8 greater than your equipped weapon, I think using only the base damage and ignoring elemental.
Thanks. I’ll be giving that a go then. I’ve just hit level 7 (I’ve had stuff to do this weekend unfortunately) and have just saved my 5000 gold so I can have a home to store stuff. I always plays these sort of games slowly. I remember being 20 hours or so into Fallout 3 and still not having got to Rivet City (or whatever it was called).
I do think they’ve finally gotten this level-in-what-you-do system working. You don’t have to mark skills just so you can train the associated stat, you don’t have to build a character that is the opposite of what you want to play. This is working beautifully so far.
And it looks like they’ve made stealing fun again. It was no fun in Fallout 3. But I haven’t found the thieves’ guild, so I can’t sell anything I swipe. Also, I need a steadier supply of lockpicks, because so far it looks like the best way to advance in Lockpicking is to snap lockpick. Actually picking the lock doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective.
I have noticed picks are much easier to snap than in Oblivion as well. I could go through ten locks with one pick back then. Now Anything more than a novice and I break at least one per lock.
Most areas have a level range. The level of opponents will equal yours or match the closest to it.
For example dungeon x has a range of 4-7.
If you’re level 2 then the dungeon will have level 4 encounters.
If you’re level 6 then there will be level 6 encounters.
If you’re level 11 then there will be level 7 enounters.
In my current experience this works really well.
You will encounter stuff you have to run from, fights that you can barely win with skill and luck, equal fights, and mooks you can cut down with one blow.
In particular no more of this bandits with glass armour and daedric swords you found in high level Oblivion.
On an entierly unrelated note i just now got to the college of magic. Wow, Skyrim Hogwarts, they even have a Severus Snape.
Thank you. I just hope that the level range is pretty limited, like 4-7 in your example, rather than 5-35. I like to run for my life (thinking “I will come back, and take revenge!”) or at the contrary dispatch hordes with my pinkie finger.
I’m very pleased to know that the authorities have finally taken care of those glass armor wearing, deadric sword armed bandits.
And another related question : are the items (weapons, for instance) merchants sell “leveled” too, like in oblivion?
By the way, do dungeons respawn, like in Oblivion, or can you take residence in a “cleaned” one, like in Morrowind?
PS : I strongly suspect I know what my free time will be wasted on soon
(When I think of it, depsite hundreds of hours spent on Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion, I never finished any of these games)
Yep from what i’ve read the range is reasonably narrow. There does seem to be some mild increase in the equipment on offer at my goto blacksmith. Whether that’s just chance or not i’m not sure. I suspect there may be some Increased chance of more powerful stuff as you level. It doesn’t appear to be egregious however. The odd higher level stuff . not complete suits of enchanted glass armour or anything like that.
I agree with this; the old version was positively perverse.
A bunch of merchants seem to occasionally sell lockpicks; make sure you check their “Misc” section if they have one. As for finding the Thieves Guild (and for that matter, the Dark Brotherhood):
It’s way over in the northeast, in a city named Riften. The easiest way to find the location is to ask around and get the rumor that Aventus Aretino is trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood; he lives there. Ask around a little there and you’ll get directed to the guy who’ll put you in touch with the guild.
I don’t believe so. You can’t become a werewolf then a vampire since lycanthropy makes you immune to the disease that makes you a vampire; and according to the Wiki page even if you get cured you still can’t become a vampire.
It seems to be one of several ways they copied or came up with the same ideas as Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul. The level range limit, plants vanishing when you harvest them, having to walk to cities before being able to fast travel to them; there’s various little things that make me thing of OOO. Although Skyrim isn’t as hard as Oblivion with OOO can be.
Aventus Aretino is in Windhelm, northeast of start. And Riften is in the southeast. I don’t know anything about Thieves Guild yet,
Re: werepires: I just checked my active effects and I have constant 100% resist disease, so you probably can’t. In Morrowind, you were blocked from contracting diseases if you caught corprus disease in the main quest. The solution there was to create a “100% weakness to disease on self,” but it looks like the spellmaker is gone in Skyrim (boo! hiss!).
