Forums » Elder Scrolls

Learning in Skyrim

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:34 PM EST

    Like that some races are more keen on learning certain talents due to their upbringing and traditions? The person is placed in the world of Skyrim without any previous training in any skill. Imagine an extremely lazy son of a Jarl who had fun all the time and didn't learn anything. How fast will he be able to learn those skills? Can potentially be any race

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:36 PM EST

    OK, agreed, lockpicking requires more a logical mind and perception than talent. What should come next? Maybe Sneak?

    • 52 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:36 PM EST
    Is this real life or in Skyrim?
    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:38 PM EST

    In Skyrim 

    • 52 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:43 PM EST
    Probably Pickpocketing or Sneak then.
    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:45 PM EST

    Hmm... Steed Stone does make it easy to learn armor skills. Without it Heavy Armor should require strength and stamina to wear, with it - only stamina. So I'd say Light Armor is easier but both are easy with Steed Stone 

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:45 PM EST

    Why Pickpocketing?

    • 52 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:47 PM EST
    Pickpocketing is more about choosing your target. If they are distracted and people are touching them. (Ex. In a crowd) they Arn't going to notice an extra hand on them. Next thing you know, you have some extra lunch money.
    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:52 PM EST

    The thing with pickpocketing is that it requires a certain mindset. You have to dare to steal someone's purse in the crowd. In real life pickpockets usually work in groups to provide these distractions you mentioned. Besides seeing as in Skyrim it's all trial and error you'd spend more time in prison than practicing 

    P.S. You can reply to other people's comments by hitting a reply button right under their replies 

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:55 PM EST

    You are right talking about an aptitude for certain skills. Imagine a completely average character who has small aptitude for all skills. I'm more interested in learning mechanics, how much work is required to be average in some skill

    • 52 posts
    December 24, 2013 1:57 PM EST
    I know you can but I usually don't. Most people will look back on the same post, refreshing it.
    • 52 posts
    December 24, 2013 2:01 PM EST
    For block people used to use wooden swords to practice. It would leave welts and bruises but at least there isn't a 6-inch slash across your back.
    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 2:06 PM EST

    It makes it easier to follow when you know who do you reply to 

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 2:09 PM EST

    That's the difference of concepts of light and heavy armor. In light armor your emphasis is on dodging the enemy strikes. In heavy armor is to put an armored side under the blows. Both require coordination and agility. By wearing those armors in the fight you learn how to use them according to their specifics. Read the Orsinium and the Orcs. It describes some specifics of heavy armor

    • 12 posts
    December 24, 2013 4:01 PM EST

    I would say Alchemy is the easiest to learn. It doesn't require any sort of innate capabilities, and anyone can learn it, as opposed to trying to teach a giant Orc how to sneak. And although smithing could also be taught to anyone, it still requires some sort of skill and strength that can't necessarily be taught, alchemy seems to just be mixing ingredients.

    • 17 posts
    December 24, 2013 4:24 PM EST

    You could, but if at the beginning you had little to no knowledge of tactics, movements, etc. Someone that has trained before will almost certainly slaughter you outright. If you have some knowledge/are just plain lucky it could happen but I wouldn't count on it, realistically that is.

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 5:29 PM EST

    OK, that's what I thought it would be 

    • 1483 posts
    December 24, 2013 5:31 PM EST

    Yes, the thing with Alchemy is that it requires little effort to craft a potion (compared to Smithing) and mistakes are not punished as much as with Enchanting where you can lose an entire object you try to enchant. Alchemy Labs take it even further, making your job even easier.

  • December 24, 2013 5:53 PM EST

    Let's see... from top hardest to easiest:

    1. Pickpocket, I can't fanthom the years of training it must take to remove someone's armor without him noticing. Inhuman amounts of skill I'm telling you.

    2. Heavy Armor... because learning how to take a blow from a polar bear without dying sounds quite difficult to me.

    3. Light Armor, same reasoning

    4. Smithing, takes years to learn

    5. Speech, it's a talent thing

    6. Illusion, it seems to me that there's a massive gap between just throwing charges of magicka (Destruction) and being able to channel magicka into something so complex it can change people's thoughts or make you invisible.

    7. Alteration, same thing

    8. Conjuration, again needs proper use of magicka, but I have the impression that once you know the summon it becomes easy peasy.

    9. Block, it doesn't seem too easy to use a shield properly, that is, not just putting it in between you and the enemy but knowing how to actually use it as a war tool, it sounds a bit more complex than just attacking with a sword

    10. Two Handed, it musn't be too easy to properly use such swords... at least not like they do in Skyrim where it's just big hill billy swings with no apparent brains behind the brawl

    11. One Handed, sounds a bit easier

    12. Enchanting, it's like watered down Conjuration

    13. Lockpicking, sounds difficult to learn but not sure if it's a one trick poney thing.

    14. Sneak, it's intuitive in my opinion, and very luck based.

    15. Restoration, just go to the temple of Kynareth and spend a few years healing wounded soldiers

    16. Alchemy, get a book by your side with the recipes and GG

    17. Destruction, just throw magicka at people

    18. Archery, all I have to say about it:

    • 1913 posts
    December 24, 2013 5:58 PM EST
    I have and I was lucky, every shot I made on my first try was a bullseye
    • 152 posts
    December 25, 2013 12:58 AM EST

    Armor skills are, in general for RP, is how to deal with the weight of the armor, and how to use it effectively to have blows not hurt you (ex. moving so a blow glances off, instead of impacting fully, knowing what blows should be dodged, which absorbed, which deflected)

    Vazgen's link to Orsinium and the Orcs is a great example for heavy armor

    • 152 posts
    December 25, 2013 1:03 AM EST

    I am not an archer in real life. However, I am a lover of history. And when I see that in England users of the longbow were FORCED to practice on Sundays, that points two things out to me. Either 1) they REALLY need archers and 2) it takes LOTS of practice to remain/become skilled with a longbow.

    (postscript: I feel really shitty about not being able to provide a reference for the bit of information. However, it is just an example, and I am not teaching a class, so meh)

    • 158 posts
    December 26, 2013 7:59 PM EST
    Easiest to hardest:
    Alchemy - you can take notes on your mixtures; you don't have to memorize everything
    Destruction
    Restoration
    One handed
    Archery
    Two handed
    Light Armor
    Heavy Armor
    Block
    Speech
    Lockpicking
    Sneak - I'm a klutz in real life; sneak seems kinda miraculous to me.
    Enchanting - creating some kind of longlasting effect that remains seems complicatec
    Alteration
    Conjuration - per the first commenter, needs mentoring to contact & control Daedra
    Illusion
    Pickpocketing

    Up until lockpicking, these all seem like rote memorization tasks - you can learn them if you just drill and practice enough. Anything beyond that, from sneak through pickpocketing, it seems to me, would require some innate talent, or many, many, many hours of training.
    • 62 posts
    December 27, 2013 5:16 PM EST
    If that's your reaction to archery, you must not have tried it.
    • 1483 posts
    December 27, 2013 5:32 PM EST

    Hmm, for me the magic skills seem to be the hardest to learn, since they involve things not present in real life. For example, Destruction may seem simple, just channeling magicka through you, but I think it requires a few characteristics of the character, some inborn attunement to magicka. All races on Nirn have that, but some to a lesser extent. That said, you'll also need to learn how to change the form of that pure magickal energy to a Fire or Frost. I would have also put the Restoration as quite a hard school, since you need a very good knowledge of physiology (of all Nirn races), and using magicka to knit flesh together the way it was before seems very hard to me. 

    The book Breathing Water describes the training of a Waterbreathing spell and gives the duration of the course as several weeks. If one spell takes that long, maybe others could be much longer and to get somewhat average at the skill you'll need quite some time.