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Help with role play of blacksmith character

  • September 29, 2016
    I have character commitment issues. After having been playing Skyrim with all DLCs on x360 for a couple of years I have a habit of getting a character to around level 30 or so at the most and then rolling up a new character to try a different play style for a while. The other day I decided to try something different. I created a female Nord and decided she would be a blacksmith but with no combat skills. She punched her way out of Helgen, not wanting to put on gross armor from dead guys and not really knowing how to wield weapons beyond basics. I had her using a woodsman axe and a hunting bow, primarily mining ore, making some simple armor, and hunting for food and hides for use in making armor. I had her sleeping in inns. If she went somewhere like Halted Stream I had her use her bow to knock down a lantern and set fire to all the oil, then use her axe to block blows from the surviving bandit chief until she whittled him down enough to kill him. After that and a handful of other bandit encounters I had her "learn" combat (one handed) basics from Amren after returning his sword, which luckily just happened to be at Halted Stream. Later she learned some armor skill from someone else and two handed from Shatter-shield after bringing him an amulet of Arkay. At some point I had her complete the favor for the jarl of Falkreath, and she built a modest one room house with forge, smelter, and workbench outside the house. She "learned" to smith Orcish from Ghorza, and then when Lod and the guy who tends the cemetery (not the Altmer), were killed in a vampire attack, I had her join the Dawnguard. So, now she's wearing full Orcish with a war hammer standing outside Dimhollow at level 13,and I feel like things are moving faster for her than I want. I want to grow this character and have her complete *most* of the quest lines, maybe excluding most of the daedra, DB, Thieves, but main quest, Companions, civil war, Dragonborn, etc I don't want this character to top out at something like level 30, but rather would see her go to 50 or higher. Honestly, this character really started out as one of the most fun I've played. She wasn't wearing armor, didn't know how to fight well. Just a dirty, young blacksmith trying to make her way in Skyrim. I can certainly go back to an earlier save before I started DG, and frankly the last several characters I've played have been vampire/daedra hunters and I'd rather stay away from the quest for a while yet. Any thoughts or suggestions? I've also been eschewing companions (the tag along variety, not the warriors) as well to make things a little more difficult. Also playing on adept. I really like this character but think she needs kind of a reset. She doesn't seem like at level 13 she should be wearing top line armor and getting into major fights.
  • Member
    September 29, 2016

    Hmm... maybe turn her into a Jack-of-all-Trades. You'll feel like you progress a bit slower into the game.

  • Member
    September 30, 2016

    A possibility could be that she can create those high level weapons but that she doesnt neccesssarily know how to use them. If she has been attacked or she wants to keep plundering through mines to get alot of ore then she will want to know how to defend herself. She could go to the companions for that, she could become a soldier and receive military training to help her. She might just want a one-on-one tutor so she finds some one that can train her skills up with the gold she makes by smithing. If you make her learn how to fight before hacking down all of her enemies than that might help prolonge this character.

  • October 2, 2016

    Andro - that's exactly what I chose to do. I went back to an earlier save from before joining the Dawnguard. Thankfully, both Lod and Kust are still alive. When I reloaded the vampire attack never happened. Of course they could always get killed later on and maybe serve as some motivation. I had her go to the Mages College and learn some enchanting there, then venture to Windhelm where she was talking to a guy (Shatter-shield) about how he lost his daughter. She found out he knew a thing or two about wielding two-handed weapons so she paid him some gold to learn a few techniques as well as promising him an Amulet of Arkay should she find one in her travels. I'm playing this character a bit more like she doesn't know what's coming next (even though I do). I had her listen outside Aventus' door before deciding to break in, which she normaly doesn't do, being an upstanding citizen of Skyrim and not given to pickpocketing or otherwise breaking into peoples homes or other questionable acts. I justified her  breaking into his house by maybe her hearing this poor child who sounded like something just wasn't right. Turns out she finds this kid who's been abused by some old hag running an orphanage in Riften. I'm being more methodical overall and trying to play it more like a character that shouldn't just smith a fancy suit of armor and a huge hammer and then go off adventuring when she's never done anything like ever before. Not so sure I want to join the Companions yet, but I'm kind of playing things by ear maybe looking for somethign to happen to push her towards a more martial way of life maybe and see where things go from there. Maybe hearing the drunken tales of quests in various taverns and inns make her want to try her own hand at adventuring. Weilding the steel versus just forging it. I gotta say, this approach to playing a character is more engaging so far versus the dogged pursuit of various levels of whatever skill, spell, armor, weapon, whatever. I think the problem with my previous builds has been some ideal of building a character that does one specific thing, or maybe weilds a certain kind of weapon, or wears a certain type of armor, and most of those first 30 levels are directed towards just getting to the point of setting up some character archetype versus playing the character without always thinking - "Okay, so I should go to this dungeon to get this thing, and then do these quests to get those things... etc." That gets boring I think because you're not so much playing a character as really just trying to build an archetype of some sort before you really get into playing the game. I even thought - maybe she's got a crush on Balimund. She already said she'd bring him fire salts, and paid for a round of training from him. So, I had her go back to Riften for something and though she couldn't afford to pay for more training, I joked around with my wife and said, "Maybe I'll have her stand over here and watch him. She'll observe his technique on the grindstone and then how much he fans his forge with the bellows." Basically playing the character like she really was a young smith's apprentice who not only appreciated seeing a master "performing miracles with steel," but also was kind of coming to terms with crushing on him as well. A slower, steadier, more methodical approach is certainly working better.