Skyrim without the dragons: my khajiit's quiet adventure.

[Sansha]

I always thought that unless the Dragonborn was a Nord, it didn't make sense at all.

I actually agree, and I'm surprised to find someone who shares that point of view - unless the Dragonborn is Nord or Imperial, it just didn't fit to me. I can't imagine a Dunmer or Khajiit shouting Unrelenting Force at me. It just doesn't suit.

Personally, I liked the system in Morrowind better where venturing off in that fashion would get your killed quickly. The game there made more sense... being ordered to go out in the wilderness was actually a little intimidating because transportation was difficult and the creatures could very easily screw up your game. So, you tended to stick near towns and transportation hubs. In other words, textbook pitch perfect use of game mechanics to heighten immersion and realism.

You should try Unlevelled World. [http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=6206] It makes everything unreasonably difficult until you're at higher levels, and really know how to play and fight. A normal bandit will kill you in a single hit - the only thing you're able to fight are wolves and foxes. Everything else will end you. It's made battles with Thalmor patrols truly epic duels.

 

[piinyouri]

I have precisely one character that has finished (or even touched) the main story.
One, out of about 20 characters.

I find it more fun without the dragons/shouts as well.

 

[voltair27]

Dunno what yer talkin about, Argonian's work too. I mean, if you've got dragon-blood, shouldn't you look a wee-bit scaley?

My character from my friend's 360 is a murderous Argonian who bludgeons things to death with a hammer. And is an evil bastard in general.

Well, canonically I see it like this:

Arena: Imperial
Daggerfall: Breton
Morrowind: Dunmer
Oblivion: Imperial
Skyrim: Nord

 

[infohippie]

Not to mention just how much better the game looks on a decent PC.

It certainly does, especially when you install shader mods.

 

[Blunderboy]

I always have issues with Skyrim. I love the early game when I'm exploring and even normal bandits are a threat.

Then I get more and more powerful and have to fight more dragons and trolls and giants and such.

Yeah I really prefer my fantasy low thanks.

 

[putowtin]

I've been playing it on the 360 (my computer is so very broken) my newist character is:
imperial, level 63 and has avoided the civil war. I've only killed the first dragon (the one outside of Whiterun) as part of the main quest (those Greybeards must be sat there, drinking tea and wondering where I've got to!)

She's also leader of the theives, listener in the Dark Brotherhood and just killed Lord Harkon (Dawnguard DLC)

Might start a new character soon, and go nowhere near the main quest and just play it as a pure Imperial (I've only seen the civil war through once and that was with a Nord)

 

[Doclector]

I managed to get some proper progress on skyrim at last when I finally found a character that could truly stick with.

Light armour, axe and sheild weilding dwarf.

Yep.

I essentially bastardised a Bosmer, making him as stout looking as possible, giving him a massive beard. The only elvish quality that I couldn't remove was the ears.

I try to role play a little as well, be a stubborn bastard who drinks regularly.

I also found it helped to play the mercenary, not having too strong a moral code, so that no quest line felt wrong.

Chucking in some alchemy skill (I love to poison things) and some alteration so that I can boost my armour at will, and finally, a character that's both visceral and satisfies my urges both for depth and to play as a short angry alcoholic tinkerer.

 

[DanielBrown]

Started a run like that a while ago as well. Made a Khajit thief/archer who I was just gonna explore and enjoy the world with. Got to maybe my tenth dungeon when I remembered the horrible framerate issues the PS3 brings and turned it off.

Saw something about a patch that improved the framerate issues, but I don't feel like taking any chances. Getting 30 hours into a game only to have it lag the fuck out every time you play for more than 20 minutes gets dull really fast. Had to bite the bullet on my first run, which lasted for 110 hours before I gave up.

 

[Elijin]

Hahaha, it amuses me so much this is apparently a thing people do intentionally.

Not because Im looking down on it or anything, but because of how I play TES games. The moment I can break from the story, I do. And promptly run into the wilderness never to be seen by that quest giver again.

My first playthrough of the game, I had cleared 150ish locations and was contentedly collecting things and doing side quests when I thought to myself 'There arent many dragons in this game. Or you know. Any. Weird.'

People who say the game without dragons lacks anything are missing the point. TES games are about the huge world and myriad of options, not one specific feature or lack of it.

 

[IronMit]

Ooooo that sounds interesting. I am no longer into skyrim..I don't like how the leveling up system works with combat.
...such as a shield only blocks likes 20% damage unless you keep using it and leveling it up. That just makes no sense.

Is there a mod that makes the shield block 99% physical damage...but drains stamina depending on leveling instead? A more high risk high reward system like dark souls.

Also I don't like how you have to change magic powers to equip them and then use them...can I just have a magic hand with buttons assigned that will shoot out fire, frost, heal with a click of a button...all in real time?

 

[The-Fiction]

I've been doing this with my latest character (female Dunmer using Illusion and Sneak skills , great fun making enemies attack each other before sneaking up on the remaining one and slitting their throat) and I have been having a blast. I'm playing on Xbox so no mods for me unfortunately but I try to avoid fast travel where I can (exceptions being when I have LOADS of stuff to sell so I jump between a few cities just to sell off all my junk quickly so I can jump back into the meaty stuff).

I haven't even reported news of the Dragon attack on Helgen to the Jarl of Whiterun yet as I wasn't sure at what point in the questline Dragons started appearing so I just played it safe and left him alone. Only pain is every time I go into Dragonsreach the Jarls damn bodyguard woman comes up to me and tries to force me into conversation so I have to run away from her.

Her: (Talking to me) "What's the meaning of this interruption?! The Jarl is not to be distrurbed!"
Me: "Calm down lady I'm only here for the wizard and the enchanting table, stop following me!"

I haven't even completed the quest line with my first character, I got halfway through it then kinda lost interest/got distracted by everything else. I do kinda like the idea of the chosen Dragonborn, the one who can decide the fate of Skyrim, being all like "Dragons? Yeah I'll get right on that... just gotta do some other things first. It's on my to-do list don't worry."

 

[DoPo]

But what exactly IS there to do? Radiant quests, crafting, dungeon diving. . . not really special in my opinion.

What exactly IS there to do in ? , , . . . not really special in my opinion.

You can fill in the blanks yourself.

 

[Legion]

I did something like that for a sneaky Dunmer.

My back story was that they travelled to Skyrim to hunt down Daedric artefacts to stop them from being abused. So I began my character, completed the first quest. Did the Golden Claw quest to fund my expedition and off I went completing the Daedra missions.

It wasn't a long term game, but it was very fun to do, as I stayed in character and didn't do the normal things you might do if you were meta-gaming such as try and get as much value for money with loot and so on.

On my latest play through I simply downloaded a character who had done all of the main quests but been reset to a level 1. This was because I wanted to do the DLC's and so on with the shouts available, but didn't feel like doing the main quest itself for the 5th time running.

So I brought up the console, changed them to the race I wanted and started a new adventure with the ability to use shouts.

I completed Dragonborn with it, and am near the start of Dawnguard, but may start again with another type of character. I keep trying to play as a pure mage, but find it gets boring quite quickly. Most of my characters have been the sneaky types which is great fun, but I feel like I should try something else.

I've recently had a reinvigorated experience with Skyrim.

I got a new PC just before Christmas and bought Skyrim during the Steam sales, despite already owning it on the Xbox.

I modded out all the stuff I hate about the game, modded stuff in that looks awesome/tweaks the game to my liking, and I'm having a blast

Not to mention just how much better the game looks on a decent PC.

I did exactly the same thing, except the new PC part.

Any good mods you recommend?

I have been using

- The unofficial patches (for obvious reasons.)
- Serana Vampire eyes (so the golden colour, but still with pupils.)
- A handful of armor/perk mods just to make some basic things more easily available (like how the vampire hood is impossible to get if you play as a vampire for some bizarre reason.)
- Vanilla hair varieties (normal looking hair, but some better choices)
- Morrowind Imports (Dunmer shops sell Morrowind items that come with Dragonborn)
- A quest for the dragon priest masks. It doesn't add anything, just gives markers for the tombs where the priests are.
- Dragon souls can buy perks. For when you have lot's of souls and nothing to do with them. You can set how many souls a perk costs too. For example the 8th perk in a list as standard costs 8 souls. Although I was level 35ish before I started using it, so more or less had all that I wanted as it is.

 

[Fasckira]

The dragon encounters just pissed me off more than anything. At first it was like, "Oh wow, this is really intense!" but then after a few encounters that drama dwindles till they then become the same level of annoyance as Sunday morning knock on the doors from Jehova Witnesses.

I think the most annoying battle was on one of the Brotherhood missions; I'd just handed all my weapons over, was about to step on the cart and suddenly - dragon!

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

My second play I got as far as the mural and decided to do aaaaaall those side quests I hadn't gotten to yet. And that was cool. It helped that my character was a female redguard general-asskicker. I didn't do the Imperial/Stormcloak line, the first time, so I sided Imperial the second time. Third time around, I think I might go Stormcloak, to see what that's like.

I'm keen to play the MMO.

 

[Saladfork]

I quite like the dragons, myself, although I understand why you might not want to set them loose when you're just exploring. I get a lot of use out of the shouts, though. Dual wielding + elemental fury (+ mod to allow elemental fury to be used with enchanted weapons) = I win button.

My current character is a breton ranger, focusing on stealth, marksman (with a crossbow, not a regular bow) and one-handed, though I only use one weapon and no shield. I kind of wish that were a more 'focused on' option, like duel wielding, because I really like the 'duelist' archetype who uses one one-handed weapon and likes to dodge a lot. Maybe the other hand could be used for grabs or something?

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how many of you would back Jarl Balgruuf for high king if that were an option? I totally would, every time.

 

[Longstreet]

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how many of you would back Jarl Balgruuf for high king if that were an option? I totally would, every time.

Thats the jarl from whiterum right? Yea definitely. I joined the stormcloakes in my first play through and then had to kill him. Kinda felt bad cuz i liked him.

On a slightly more related note, i might actually start playing it agian. Just the way the skill trees and guild system works holds me back a bit. But he, another kajit thief/bower/assassin type character might be fun.

 

[Dragoon]

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how many of you would back Jarl Balgruuf for high king if that were an option? I totally would, every time.

Hell yeah I would, he be ballin'
OT: I have done the exact same thing, just forgot about the main quest and dragons and used the Alternative Start mod, makes it much more interesting. The dragons just irritate me.