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Character Build: The Heart of Pellitine

Tags: #Character Build No Crafting  #Race:Khajiit  #Rank:Legendary  #Build of the Week 
  • July 2, 2014

    Disclaimer: This is Vix's Build that was inexplicably deleted from the site.

    Well, seems that some people have wanted me to write up what I've been using. So, as it is something I mused about for some time I decided to present one that I've actually finished.  While there's been 8 characters I've used to date I decided that in the interest of precedents I'll go with my first survivor Faedric of Pellitine. After all, he is my canonical Dragonborn. But, because I didn't want to leave anyone out, I wrote up a backstory which I've added to Charlie and Piper Jo's fantastic section.

     

    So without further digression, Faedric the Heart of Pellitine. *

    Premise and Theme:

        It took me a little bit of musing on what sort of character would make an interesting Dragonborn. Khajiit was an easy choice as it's certainly my favorite race, but the secondary component were far more nebulous both in style and in the reason he would be in Skyrim at all. I decided that I would make a bounty hunter, mixing melee combat with a ranged attack. 

     

            Now, as for style some of you are probably aware that I play Dead-is-dead, avoid map based fast travel, and use cooking quite extensively. What might be less obvious is despite unashamedly using potions I chose not to use Alchemy for this character. It was a role play choice rather than a design choice: what good cook would want to be making poisons? (he's probably insulted by that as is).

     

            Naturally this woodsmen type theme lends itself to a character with a high amount of stamina and health. The former became more important due to the often quick nature of combats regarding his choice of style and was also a way to allow me to think about actions and analyze them before committing. This, along with keeping the difficulty on expert, allowed me a continued challenge in working with Faedric.

     

    Weapons:

        Given that Faedric would already have access to the Thu'um I decided not to work with any magic. This further reinforced that it's the Khajiiti Alfiq and not the Suthay-Raht that are more prominent magic users. But I digress. As someone who relies mostly on living away from civilization for long stretches of time the use of a bow became quite obvious as a choice. It was a hunting weapon as well as a first strike weapon of ambushes. Using poisons would help to skew the odds in his favor and allow for a closer approach by both melee and Thu'um based combat. This would also help to preserve some of the other subsequent role-play experiences later in the game for my other characters.

     

            The question of melee weapons became more interesting to me. I decided after some thought that the primary usage would go to the war-hammer. The reasons for this stemmed from the notion that in a bounty hunter's line of work conflict with other more heavily armored groups and targets would be likely. Bandits and marauders seemed like good previous targets and would be a simple enough source of missions. Thus, the war-hammer's high per hit damage output meshed with the more important ability in it being able to ignore hard armor. This made it an attractive choice, but the later role-play reason stands as well. It is both an uncommon weapon as a player choice, but it also requires somewhat less finesse than training with a sword. Because of this it became more attractive as a practical weapon rather than one that would require too much training. Even so, I did decide that the battleaxe was a good weapon choice based on utility. A wood axe as well as a similar style to a hammer in usage allowed it to function well from a character perspective.

     

            This led to the combination of being able to strike from afar, using poisons to improve the basics potential of the weapon and philters in other aspects in order to ensure survival. This led to most of the poisons being used with the bow and closing in quickly for those last few swings with a war-hammer. This led to the relative neglect of the block skill as well as the raised need for stamina for both the war-hammer blows and for the quick charge that became important in covering ground quickly when dealing with a number of opponents, notable mages (that it was helped with the charge perk later on was also a nice bonus). If I had worked with a more efficient build I'd have worked with alchemy by merit of saving money early on as well as allowing for greater magnitudes of potency.  The other matter was that of Smithing, it was a difficult call but I decided as it no longer strictly reflected repair it would have to be left aside given Faedric's relative inexperience with the nuances of Nord and Colovian designed heavy armor.  More over, the weapons he would have possessed, namely a war-hammer, requires very little maintenance.

     

    The Role:

        Faedric is a hunter, he also exhibits borderline psychopath tendencies. There is little place for honor which presents itself more as a suicidal self-restriction when playing dead-is-dead. Instead, he works by ambush, poison, bribe, or blackmail to get what he wants. There was no reservations about surrendering persons and no sanctity in location or by merit of age or family members.

     

            His later enlistment in the Imperial forces stem from personal grievances against Nords. He doesn't like them, they've always shown a more xenophobic tendency so he's taken the chance to lord success over them whenever he can. This goes with weapons, gaudy clothing, and finally after the conquest of Windhelm, the dedication of his home to a museum rather than a place of residence. Here resides war trophies of the rebel leaders, as well as his bounties and gifts from the Legion. However, this dislike of Nords and Stormcloaks as a culmination of everything he dislikes turns quickly to more questionable actions. Those wandering 'recruits' saying Ulfric was right were promptly slain, the injured Stormcloaks in camps were likewise butchered. After all, he's being paid by the Imperials so he does the best job he can do which naturally is somewhat vicious. Generally, he's also mostly professional and will pull his policy for one group, Khajiit. He's a strict racist in that sense, they will get preferential treatment and if they 'surrender' typically he'll accept it and melt back in to the shadows with the ripped and rent bodies of their comrades around them.

     

    Faedric:

    Time: 147 hours.

    Lv. 34, Khajiit, Warrior Stone

     

    Health: 250

    Staimina: 280

    Magicka: 100

     

    Primary Skills:

     

    Two-Handed: 96 (Barbarian 5/5, Champion's Stance, Limbsplitter 2/3, Skullcrusher 3/3, Great Critical Charge, Devastating Blow, Sweep)

          Yes, I finished it before hitting 100, but even so it was good enough for its purpose. I'll be honest, I came across a lot of things that even got the jump on me which necessitated a lot of use with the war-hammer. Some Dwemer automatons as well as fast closing enemies, notably sabercats and their ilk meant it became an often used skill. It yields a lot of damage (I know the DPS numbers favor other combinations but this worked well in what I experienced) and meant that there were many more staggering blows given out which lessened the use of the block skill. Compounded with the lack of fast travel meant I had a lot more fights than I expected. If I'd bothered more with efficiency I'd have given up Limbsplitter for other perks.

     

    Heavy Armor: 76 (Juggernaut 2/5, Fists of Steel, Cushioned, Conditioning).

          Most of the use here came from my want of the Conditioning perk which fit Faedric when I considered him. If memory serves, it was also one of the very last perks chosen as a final 'carry over' to his understanding of the Nordic notions of Heavy Armor which very likely would have corresponded to the Khajiit's natural affinity with their own plated mail. Juggernaut should have been a slightly stronger focus given the lack of a block skill.

     

    Sneak: 69 (Stealth 2/5, Muffled Movement)

          Despite the few perks put into the skill they were more because I didn't believe I needed it on the whole. The use here was placement, being able to scout and analyze it was a great help in allowing me to survive. It was a tactical skill that allowed for good positioning. Ridges, bridges, lofts, and other such points to get the drop on an opponent with a few well places arrows before closing quickly for melee was imperative.

     

    Secondary Skills:

     

    Archery: 67 (Overdraw 3/5, Eagle Eye, Critical Shot 2/3, Power Shot)

          Archery had a two pronged use, as a hunting weapon it excelled and helped bring in a lot of good meat. But it also allowed for an initial advantage in Faedric's favor. A few shots sometimes were all that was needed, along with usually one critical shot could even up a very difficult fight. It doesn't eliminate risk but it goes a long way in reducing it. It also does one other thing, it provides a good distraction. Firing an arrow off into a corner and letting people investigate that went a long way into infiltration as well as several good hits from behind with a war-hammer if they were alone.

     

    Speech: 63 (Haggling 2/5, Allure, Bribery)

          This was more of a role-play choice. I wanted it to work with reflecting his personality. On one hand he's quite used to some of his actions, (break and enter, things of that nature) causing problems with the authorities. Paying them off as well as for mistaken assaults was something I found would have likely kept him alive for quite a while in the more civilized parts. Haggling furthered this though he was only ever a sufficient merchant with some dreams of investing in shops at home. However, the Allure was one I was laughing at a bit. This is mostly to the Psychotic end of things; a split personality between being utterly inhuman (figuratively) in his ruthless behavior while outwardly showing a charming social disposition.

    ...

    Conclusion:

            Faedric is one of those characters I did enjoy and it did let me work out some of the questions regarding the civil war.  He's certainly not the nicest of characters, he has a fairly spotty attitude in general, but he's interesting to me because of the duplicitous natures of his professional vs. personal self.   However, his journey is done until some sort of main quest DLC comes out.  He remains my canonical Dragonborn and one of the cornerstones of several other of my characters in Skyrim.  He's far from perfectly effective or efficient but was enjoyable to work with.  

    *The incredible picture comes from Sandara of DeviantArt which both reflects and inspired what I do imagine some 'legacy' portrait would look like.  It also helped settle my final decision on the light vs. heavy armor question.

    *+ And Thanks to Joe Lacy who helped clean up this second Faedric screenshot.  A few more will be added in a gallery in the arts group soon.

  • July 2, 2014

    Nice first build Rune :P

  • Member
    July 2, 2014
    Will you post his "Order of twin serpents" or something like that?
  • Member
    July 2, 2014

    Psh. Rune has one of the coolest builds on the site, The Agent.

  • July 2, 2014

    I always really liked this build. Do you know why it was deleted?

  • July 2, 2014

    Done.

  • July 2, 2014

    Nice first build from Vix... Duh...

  • July 2, 2014

    We (the admins) do not know, we just have conjecture.

    Edit: Ben is very good at solving puzzles - see the following comments.

  • Member
    July 2, 2014
    Maybe Vix moved on?
  • July 2, 2014

    Both of his builds were Legendary... I am uncertain, the hosts can make that call. I guess I should give it some tags though.