Skyrim: playstyle you can powerplay without becoming OP.

[Hagi]

Hey everyone,

I only recently purchased Skyrim and am now in the process of deciding what type of character I want to play.

There's one snag though. There's two things I love in games like this:
- Powerplaying.
- Challenge.

Only problem is that in games like Skyrim that clearly aren't balanced for powerplay they're rather mutually exclusive.

From what I hear when powerplaying a stealthy character you can one-shot entire dungeons without ever being detected without any real trouble.

So I'm wondering, is there any playstyle you can powerplay (pick all the best perks, all the best enchantments, all the best armour etc.) and still have a challenging experience?

I was thinking going unarmed perhaps seeing as damage for that is capped and unable to get to extreme heights but from what I hear the cap may be so low that at later levels it's downright impossible.
Magic is also an option seeing as custom spellmaking is out and thus there's also a reasonable cap on spell damage although I will very much miss the awesome finishing moves that melee provides.

So, any advice on this score? A playstyle that's generally underpowered so that when powerplayed it becomes somewhere around balanced?

Any replies are greatly appreciated. And, since I'm sure this will be suggested, I prefer to avoid mods that greatly alter the Skyrim vanilla gameplay experience. Minor balance mods are fine, but mods that introduce a lot of new stuff I'd rather save for second playthroughs and such.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If you want a challenge then set it to hardest and never spend any skill points, it is the only way it will stay somewhat hard.
Ok you might put a few into health because enemies can pull off insta unavoidable executions if you have low HP.

Oh and magic has finishing moves with the new patches.

 

[Jamash]

I'm not sure if this fits your requirements, but a style I found to be very satisfying to use and develop was 'Shield&Spell'.

I picked a Nord with a big beard and primarily focused on using a shield as my main "weapon" and kept my main hand free for magic, mainly defensive spells in the Restoration and Alteration schools but also the occasional Illusion spell or offensive Destruction Rune.

I specialised in Heavy Armour but only took the Steel Smithing Perk, deciding very early on to exclusively plod around in Steel/Wolf Armour and wield a Steel Shield.

It's slow to begin with, since you have to fight defensively and be very tactical in your positioning, making sure that you're always facing your enemies and can't be flanked.

To begin with your damage output is very low, especially if you mainly use the shield bash to attack, but it picks up as you put perks in the Block tree (although it's still capped and doesn't increase like a weapon skill), but even then your shield bash attack it dependant on stamina and has to be used tactically. The Quick Reflexes perk helps a lot, slowing things down and giving you more time to decide which of your attacking enemies most deserves the next shield to the face.

Later on, as you level up Restoration you can take the Respite perk which allows you to regain health and stamina with a healing spell, so you can shield bash until your stamina is depleted, then refill it and continue bashing and stun locking your opponent until they're dead.

As you level up and put take the relevant Block, Restoration and Alteration perks you do become a bit over powered, but defensively overpowered rather than damage output. The Elemental Protection perk from the Block tree coupled with the Magic Resistance & Atronach perks from the Alteration tree makes you practically immune from magic (if you block the incoming spells), plus the Deflect Arrows and Block Runner perks means you can defend against archers whist closing in on them.

Once you get Block to 100 and take the Shield Charge perk, you can just raise your shield and bowl everyone over, which makes mobs easier to isolate and combat, although this can be abused for great laughs if you also have 100 in Illusion and combine it with Muffle and Invisibility since the Shield Charge attack doesn't disrupt Invisibility, so you can run around, smashing everyone off their feet whilst remaining completely invisible, silent and undetected.

Powerplaying this style does make you a indestructible magic tank who can restore health and stamina more quicker than it can be depleted, but it's still fun as you have to actively use your shield for it to be effective and with limited damage dealing options, encounters are still proper fights in which you have to participate, rather than being brief encounters in which you just press the "win button" and one-shot everything.

Most styles in Skyrim become over powered later in the game, but at least this one isn't sneakily killing everything before they even detect you, instead you slowly and blatantly walk up to everything and smash them with your shield (or slowly annihilate them with whatever Destruction spell you have on your main hand).

 

[Zhukov]

If you rely on destruction magic for damage and bump up the difficulty a bit then you might find what you're after.

Be forewarned that smithing, enchanting and alchemy all completely break the game, and that's without using exploits.

 

[theevilgenius60]

If you don't want to be OP, stay away from sneaky archer. All I heard in my playthrough of that was the drumbeat(literally) of crit hits. My cousin was having rough time as a two hand warrior, but he's pretty bad at it so I can't judge, I never play two hand. Dual wielding may give a challenge, especially if you rush, as there's no block/parry(at least, that's what the prompts say, I play to enjoy myself, so I never tried it). That's all I got. Every playthrough so far(5 of them) I've ended up OP by the time I'm ready to go after some of the main quest.

 

[Soopy]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Skyrim is easy and there is little point to the effort you put in. If you're not getting what you want from Skyrim, then its not the game you want to be playing.
Its a god building hiking simulator.

I tried just about every "class", and they all end up massively over powered by about level 25. Unless you go deliberately gimping yourself. If you're going to do that, then why even bother with the game?

 

[IndomitableSam]

I still want to play as a Destruction/Resto only mage. Without alchemy, smithing or enchanting. Or as a sword-and-board character who just doesn't craft anything and only uses what's looted.

Again, on my recent playthrough, we fell into the trap of doing all the crafting and it's made it boring. Maybe I'll propose the mage type to my sister so we can actually use followers for once, as we've always been stealth before.

 

[Soopy]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Because to some people, that's fun.

For example, I love Dark Souls. Playing it the normal way, I find it not very difficult though. So I started a sorceress, and decided to never level her up, never get different gear, and only use the normal and divine upgrade paths for gear. I could get new sorceries of course, as long as I could use them. I am also not allowed to drink potions during bossfights, or heal using humanity.

This makes the game ridiculously difficult at some points, and that's just what I sometimes want.

And sometimes you want to smash things with giant hammers, and laugh as you deal four times their maximum health in damage. That's fun too.

Snippity

That sounds like tons of fun. Should I ever pick up Skyrim, this is what I'll play first.

That's all well and good, but to make Skyrim difficult you basically have to disallow 98% of the game mechanics. Even it doesn't become hard, it becomes tedious.

 

[hazabaza1]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Skyrim is easy and there is little point to the effort you put in. If you're not getting what you want from Skyrim, then its not the game you want to be playing.
Its a god building hiking simulator.

I tried just about every "class", and they all end up massively over powered by about level 25. Unless you go deliberately gimping yourself. If you're going to do that, then why even bother with the game?

Watch out guys, the fun police is on the prowl.
OT: I hear magic is pretty shitty compared to everything else. Maybe play a summoner?

 

[xshadowscreamx]

just beef up the difficulty, i just cant be bothered with RPGS on hard mode..that why i only played casual on dragon age...i play on normal on skyrim

 

[twistedheat15]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Skyrim is easy and there is little point to the effort you put in. If you're not getting what you want from Skyrim, then its not the game you want to be playing.
Its a god building hiking simulator.

I tried just about every "class", and they all end up massively over powered by about level 25. Unless you go deliberately gimping yourself. If you're going to do that, then why even bother with the game?

Watch out guys, the fun police is on the prowl.
OT: I hear magic is pretty shitty compared to everything else. Maybe play a summoner?

Shitty? Its the most broken thing in the game if you so conjuration or distruction. My mage destroys things so fast enemies are little more then gnats to me and self imposed challenges just make the game tedious not actually challenging.

 

[Maniac2807]

If you want to go with unarmed, I'd advise tracking down a decent mod (if you're on PC) and for magic, IMO mods are 100% necessary mostly because spell costs are too high, coupled with slow Magicka Regen.

EDIT: Also, avoid smithing, as it will easily break the game and make you overpowered

 

[Terminate421]

I do the gandalf method of wearing Robes, Heavy armor on hands and feet, then using a sword in one hand and magic in the other.

My lack of using heavy armor makes me a prime target for death quickly.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Pacifist? Buff/heal/cower behind Lydia or stealth past guys without killing anyone. If someone must die, utilize a fury spell from stealth. Buff speechcraft so you can talk your way out of the few situations that you're able. Just an idea stolen from that FO3 article somewhere on this site

 

[KINGBeerZ]

OT: I hear magic is pretty shitty compared to everything else. Maybe play a summoner?[/quote]


no, magic is not shitty for a start. on my first playthrough i was a mage that specialized in conjuration magic and destruction. I could kill an ancient dragon by staggering it with magic so much that it never got a hit on me or i could summon two potent storm atronachs and just let them kill everything.

I found using no armour and alteration spells in its place to be fairly challenging, or you could go around unarmed and punch everything to death.

 

[hazabaza1]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Skyrim is easy and there is little point to the effort you put in. If you're not getting what you want from Skyrim, then its not the game you want to be playing.
Its a god building hiking simulator.

I tried just about every "class", and they all end up massively over powered by about level 25. Unless you go deliberately gimping yourself. If you're going to do that, then why even bother with the game?

Watch out guys, the fun police is on the prowl.
OT: I hear magic is pretty shitty compared to everything else. Maybe play a summoner?

Shitty? Its the most broken thing in the game if you so conjuration or distruction. My mage destroys things so fast enemies are little more then gnats to me and self imposed challenges just make the game tedious not actually challenging.

Oh. I'm more of a "big sword, smash kill!" type guy so I never really tried a pure mage build.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Yeah, you're never going to get a particularly difficult Skyrim experience if you don't install mods. Get, say, Deadly Dragons, Duel, and some of PISE - Increased Level Scales, Increased Spawns. The three of those will greatly improve enemy AI, enemy power, and effectively erase level scaling of enemies.

Have fun getting your ass kicked...I did.

 

[twistedheat15]

why do people feel the need to make challenge where challenge doesn't exist?

Skyrim is easy and there is little point to the effort you put in. If you're not getting what you want from Skyrim, then its not the game you want to be playing.
Its a god building hiking simulator.

I tried just about every "class", and they all end up massively over powered by about level 25. Unless you go deliberately gimping yourself. If you're going to do that, then why even bother with the game?

Watch out guys, the fun police is on the prowl.
OT: I hear magic is pretty shitty compared to everything else. Maybe play a summoner?

Shitty? Its the most broken thing in the game if you so conjuration or distruction. My mage destroys things so fast enemies are little more then gnats to me and self imposed challenges just make the game tedious not actually challenging.

Oh. I'm more of a "big sword, smash kill!" type guy so I never really tried a pure mage build.

Ya my first char was pure mage with smith and enchanting, got so op I made an archer which I found going ninja archer just one shots everything after a while so made a 2hder orc then just got tired of always gimping myself and avoiding upgrades to try to keep a challlenge.