For me! The Dark Elf Spellsword type just grabs me everytime. I cant resist the look this charactor has, but please dont get me wrong I hate, loath, and dispise the "Stunmer". Skyrim has been no different for me my first playthrough was a Dunmer spellsword and afterwards I relied on everyone elses work for my entertainment, however I am working at present to give something back.
I'm much the opposite. My first character, an Argonian named Tlanqual was played similarly, where I tried to do as much as possible. Right now he's literally standing in front of Endon to complete the quest that will restore the Thieves Guild, and he'll have done all the major questlines. But along the way I found the Blog and saw that for me, at least, doing everything with one character had dulled the experience of discovery for later characters. That original character had just kind of done stuff without deriving any kind of significance from it, and then when I went back and made my thief, or my mage, there was less to look forward to because so much had already been done. That's why when the next TES game comes out, I'll be sticking strictly to what's appropriate to that character
Well, in a lot of ways agree with that. I mean, I haven't wanted to play any other game except Skyrim the way I described, and I'm sure that once I've played through several archetypes and major quest lines in the nest TES game, I'll start up a character who really "beats" the game. This time, I'll just be saving that character for last, instead of playing him first.
Well, now to post my second Character that keeps me going and was the first Skyrim.
Race: Argonian Vampire
Stone: Lady
One-Handed (Dual-Axes for DoT, Dwarven), Heavy Armor (Managed to find a full set of Dwarven. Then I took the Visage of Mhzund and Ebony Mail.), Alchemy (Poisons only that deal DoT.), Restoration (Necromage to enhance my speed.)
This was my first character. A High-Speed, Dual-Axe weilding, Poison Coating, Argonian Vampire. His main source of damage was the constant DoT and constant Bleeding stacks when using Elemental Fury. Though I seriously ended up lacking Stamina when using this in the daytime, Elemental Fury and Dual Flurry made the Twin Axes more than enough to devastate even the Ebony Warrior. I used the Ring of Namira as well as a necklace I randomly found that helped with Health Regeneration during the daytime especially. I tried to follow the game "RIFT" and create sort of a Reaver type class which relied on making my opponents suffer and slowly die. It ended up being faster than many of my other characters. Alchemy was a huge challenge until Hearthfire came and I really needed to conserve his powers:
HIS ONLY SPECIAL ABILITY:
Black-Engine: Ebony Mail+Elemental Fury+Histskin+Dual Flurry+DoT Poison+Concentrated Poison+Breath of Nchuak+Necromage.
And now for Oblivion
Race: High Elf
Sign: Atronach
Skills: Block, Heavy Armor, Mysticism, Armorer, Alteration, Destruction, Restoration.
Other Skills: Illusion, Conjuration, Light Armor.
This Character had one thing at hand: Duplication glitch and Strong Potion of Spell Absorption.
When I made this character's spells and enchanted his gear, I made sure that his spells had a large "Telekinesis" effect. Once I consumed three potions, then cast the spell, I was able to cast the spells as much as I wanted without truly loosing much magicka to none at all, due to the fact that the spell was "absorbed" but still dealt damage. My post about "Atronach Casting" has more on that.
So, he was a High Elf, Atronach Shield-Battlemage. He wore a full set of enchanted Bound Armor that had Shield, 10pts, so once the 120 health for each piece went down, I still had 50 AR. I also used Ring of Transmtation, Necromancer's Amulet and another ring that had Spell Absorb + Fortify Magicka (Sorcerer's Ring).
Thats it!
Blackguard, eh? Time to repost your first build?
For me, my favorite playstyle has always been heavy armor + sneak. Illusion for Muffle and Invisibility (maybe Quiet Casting while I'm at it) and throw in some Destruction magic buffed by Alchemy for those times when I don't feel like sneaking. Also make him a werewolf because those are always fun. I've actually got a concept in the works that pretty much ticks all the boxes for me ... Haven't gotten around to playing it yet though.
I would have to say a Mage; which is strange considering I've only ever played the one in Skyrim and it took me (how long has it been out?) to get around to it. The versatility they have and the fact you're forced to utilize it thanks to how easy it is for you to die from a couple of attacks.
I have always toyed with what a "Oprah's Favorite Things" build would look like for me and I am always hard to pin something down. It is as if my "favorite" archetype is whatever makes me happiest at the moment.
Same here. It also doesn't help that every time I try to make a list of my favorite play styles, I end up with things that contradict each other. Sometimes that can make for an interesting build, if done well. But I haven't been able to find the right way to make it work for me, short of just making a utilitarian, which ironically, in sheer principal alone, would go against my idea of an ideal build.
My process has generally been to take 2-3 things that I really love and find a way to make them support each other, creating something great than the sum of its parts. I don't really think too hard about roleplay when conceptualizing my characters, but rather, I usually just let it come naturally as I play the build. This kind of results in my characters being a bit washed out, morally, but I've always cared more for gameplay than roleplay so it's not a huge deal to me.
This thread has me reconsidering the idea of trying to put it all together into a single build. The thing is, it probably wouldn't be worth posting, because it'd essentially just be a hodgepodge of all the best bits of my previous builds.
This is actually a great topic, because it's what I'm currently trying to find, someone who can remain friendly to his roleplay while still doing most everything in the game, to try and "beat" it. I'm very attracted to a Nord rogue idea, a man with honor but also a distinct desire for power. He doesn't kill or do things without reason, but if you can give him some gold reasons, he's your man. I'm really just trying to figure out how exactly to play him. In terms of skills, certainly a mix of the tree archetypes, but I'd like to work a way to where I can use every skill with at least some degree of effectiveness, even if just situationally, but playing on console you don't have many hot keys so you don't want to spread too far out. By the same token, I lose a lot of mods, like Frostfall, Realistic Needs and Diseases, and SkyRe that I would love to use to help me roleplay. The struggle is real (well actually it's fantasy, but whatever).
Twohanded weapon coupled with elemental Destruction magic, a battlemage basically, except more specialized in terms of what magic is used. Add in Block and Enchanting, whatever armor I feel like wearing, and that's basically it. A warrior-elementalist type class, no stealth no thievery not evil or allied with daedra. I tend to switch between battleaxe and greatsword, and frost or shock magic , for my main character at least.
I have made a LOT of my own other characters whose builds were basically: weapon of choice + certain magic type, although I don't make builds on the site for them, because they're fairly simple, yet loads of fun for me. Sure there's the evil characters, the pure mages, the pure warriors, rogues, assassins, and hybrids of all sorts, but I just keep going back to the same thing!