Skyrim V: Skyrim

[Milo v3]

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Does anyone know what the point is in defeating Reaper in his Lair?
I spent about twenty minutes getting all the shards for an easy battle with crap loot.

[Grue Bait]

Who's Reaper?

[Blackdrop]

Bonus Boss from Dawnguard

RE Dawnguard Stuff: Are we keeping it in spoilers until in comes out on PC/PS3?

[Grue Bait]

Ah, is he at the end of that Aether one?

[Blackdrop]

Ah, is he at the end of that Aether one?

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Soul Cairn actually.

[DigoDragon]

That... that's some postage system they have in the reach.

LOL!
The United Reach Parcel Service. Tardy? More like TARDIS!

Similar happened to me by The Reach. I was in Whiterun, selling goods outside Warmaidens. I saw that they had a Dwarven gauntlet for sale (I was collecting a set for my follower) so I purchased it. As soon as I bought the item and exited the merchant screen I was interrupted by a courier with a letter from Calcemo who wanted to buy the gauntlet off me.

This wizard is good. Or a stalker.

I have a question. How many mods at once is normal for people?

I have about 10 mods running. I'm probably on the low-end for mod numbers, but I seem happy with just mods that improve the basic vanilla mechanics of the game; like the unofficial patch, the UFO followers mod, craftable arrows, etc.
Though I do like the mod that let's my Khajiit ears show through helmets.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have a question. How many mods at once is normal for people?

I have about 30. Many cosmetical; I have about 10 "important" mods that fixed bugs and adjusts gameplay. I have no desire to abandon the vanilla feel, really.

[Milo v3]

I craftable arrows, etc.

In Dawnguard you can craft arrows so you likely wont be needing that mod anymore.

[Grue Bait]

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Soul Cairn actually.

I thought that was

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Durnehviir. I don't remeber facing any Reaper, just some Keepers

[Morty]

Hm. I want to use the Enchantment/Alchemy loop, but I only have 4 Grand Soul Gems filled with Grand souls, and I probably need more.

[Calemyr]

Hm. I want to use the Enchantment/Alchemy loop, but I only have 4 Grand Soul Gems filled with Grand souls, and I probably need more.

For the legitimate loop? Yeah. They're not hard to get from Farengar or any of the court wizards, and general stores have one or two on a regular basis, particularly at higher levels.

To fill them, your easiest path is mammoths, who are always grand. Giants are greater, which is handy as well, and drop toes which can net you some good (read: expensive) potions. Taking them on early is suicide, however, unless you're REALLY good at exploiting terrain to ensure they can never get to you.

[Avilan the Grey]

Speaking of mods... what are your five or ten favorite ones?

For me:
1. A quality world map with roads
2. Bellyaches Animal and creature pack
3. Better Sorting
4. SkyUI
5. SkyTEST

6. Realistic Ragdolls and Force
7. Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel
8. Less Touchy Lockpicking Lite
9. XCE
10. Lanterns Of Skyrim (Not main roads, only villages and towns)

[The Underlord]

Do you have a link for less touchy lock picking?

[Avilan the Grey]

Do you have a link for less touchy lock picking?

Here you go.

[The_Jackal]

Hm. I want to use the Enchantment/Alchemy loop, but I only have 4 Grand Soul Gems filled with Grand souls, and I probably need more.

Step 1: Get a resist fire enchantment.
Step 2: Enchant a necklace, ring and boots with resist fire. (You can do a shield, too, if you use one).
Step 3: Get/make a resist fire and a resist magic potion.
Step 4: Go on the quest to obtain The Black Star. It starts at the Shrine of Azura.

You now have an infinitely re-usable black soul gem. You can now soul-trap any random bandit to fuel high end enchanting, the foundation of your Alchemy/Enchanting loop.

[Calemyr]

Step 1: Get a resist fire enchantment.
Step 2: Enchant a necklace, ring and boots with resist fire. (You can do a shield, too, if you use one).
Step 3: Get/make a resist fire and a resist magic potion.
Step 4: Go on the quest to obtain The Black Star. It starts at the Shrine of Azura.

You now have an infinitely re-usable black soul gem. You can now soul-trap any random bandit to fuel high end enchanting, the foundation of your Alchemy/Enchanting loop.

Getting the Black Star stops you from getting one of the more effective mage followers in the game, plus requires you to basically flick off one of the most benevolent Daedric princes in the setting (though that might not matter to Morty). It also only holds one soul at a time, so you're basically running into a bandit camp, killing one, and then running away to enchant with it before coming back. I don't see how that's less tedious.

It's a good idea, certainly, but I don't know if it's the only or even the best answer.

[Morty]

It's too late, since I already have Azura's Star. No matter though - I have lots of money so I might as well spend it on full Grand Soul Gems. I already bought 4 from the Windhelm court wizards, so I need 3 more before I start enchanting.

[Triaxx]

Don't forget to give a try to Lockpick Graduation as well.

Favorite Mods:
1) SkyUI. It's just so much easier to use than the built in one. And it looks nicer.
2) Midas Magic Skyrim. It hasn't been updated in a while, but frankly, that's okay. It's so useful that it's not funny.
3) Categorized Favorites Menu. Even though the default one pauses, scrolling through all the stuff I put on favorites to try and find the one I want is just no fun at all.
4) Owning Goldenglow. This one gives me Goldenglow Estate as a player home after I complete several Thieves Guild quests. It has additional crafting amenities, though you'll need your own tanning rack. No idea why it lacks one.
5) Wearable Lanterns. It's a well done mod, there are a couple of options, and now he's included a recipe to craft lanterns, making it eaiser to find, as well as being able to buy them. Plus it means that my non-mage characters can continue to see when mining, or fight with a light source without Candlelight or a torch taking up a hand. Plus I can turn it off, which I can't with Candlelight.

6)WATER. Narrowly beaten out for the top 5, this one makes the water look much better and fixes a bunch of small issues all around Skyrim.

7) Sounds of Skyrim. Thought dead, they've just released the third of four parts. Civilizations is incompatible with Open Cities though, sadly.

8) SMIM. Making Skyrim look infinitely better.

9) Jaysus Swords. Needs little introduction, this adds a huge plethora of swords to the game, and with the distrobution plugin, adds them to enemies as well.

10) Portable Campsite. Now includes useable smithing stuff. Not over powered, because some of the requirements are pretty steep. But it's worth it over all.

Honorable mentions: Skill Interface Retexture. Makes the skills nebulas look much prettier, and with no FPS drop.

Deadly Dragons. Exactly what it says on the tin. Don't worry about the gear being too strong. Soon dragons will be eating your face.

Masters of Death. An awesome assassin's light armor, based on the armor from the Assassin's Creed series, it's changed just enough to fit into Skyrim.

CLARALUX. By MyGoodEye, the author behind NV's Electro-City, this adds torches all over Skyrim and just enhances the lighting to great detail.

I've had Realistic Lighting installed forever now, and while I still think it's fabulous, I've changed mods because I'm gettting inexplicable crashes and in spots where the weather normally changes. I'm now using Project Reality, but I can't speak to that yet.

Conveinent Horses. Tired of losing your horse becuase he went haring off after some random bandit, or because a dragon ate him? This mod is for you. It add's a horn you can use to summon your horse, and if you have UFO, you can summon them for followers.

Speaking of which Ultimate Follower Overhaul, lets you have up to 15 followers, gives you greater control over them,and lets them ride horses.

Craftable Water Arrows and Dousable Sconces. Very awesome mod, very handy for a sneaky thief type.

Improved Container names. Tired of looting the ten thousandth 'Barrel'? This one changes the names to Barrel of Reagents/Food and so on, so you can skip the food and go only for reagents, or not, but you'll have the option of not having to loot every single barrel to find out.

New Alchemy and Enchanting Effects. Just what it says, this adds new effects, and lets you disenchant more of them. Some are a tad over powered, but most work fine.

Bandolier's Bags and Pouches. For all your Monty Haul needs. Warning: Right rear slot and big bag right are incompatible with Wearable lanterns. All other slots work fine though.

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And a question of my own: When you're looking at house mods, what are the three most important points for you?

[Avilan the Grey]

About Deadly Dragons: I have looked at it but no... I have enough problems with dragons killing questgivers (not all are protected) as it is. A fully powered DD would kill everyone in any town, basically.

As for House mods... I have never really bothered, because they all seem overpowered.

[BladeofObliviom]

An Ancient Dragon once ambushed me in Riverwood.


There were no survivors (besides Dovahkiin, anyway.)

[Calemyr]

And a question of my own: When you're looking at house mods, what are the three most important points for you?

1) Amenities: I don't like having to run laps around town to craft my crap.
2) Style/Story: I want the place to belong, to fit, and I want to feel like it makes sense that a dragon-killing vagrant would want to set up base there.
3) Size: It shouldn't be small, but the usual complaint I have is that they're often too big. It's very hard to justify a lot of them, because they're simply far too large, with too much storage, too much space, too many conveniences, and too clean. This is a lived in province, nothing should be all that shiny.

What I'd really like is some sort of community abode - preferably like one of the forts the bandits take over, and even more preferably where you have to clear them out and they won't respawn (although maybe outside of the fort...). It'd just be nice to have a place where my 15 UFO followers can chill, since I only take one or two out for anything but the civil war quests.

In other words, I'd like a Lucky 38 for Skyrim.

[The_Jackal]

You know what I'd really like, is a house with:

Forge
Smelter
Grinder
Workbench
Alchemy Lab
Enchanting Table
Skinning Rack

[Morty]

2) Midas Magic Skyrim. It hasn't been updated in a while, but frankly, that's okay. It's so useful that it's not funny.

This one looks interesting, but I worry about the spells being too powerful. How does it affect balance?

[Lamech]

I have a question. How many mods at once is normal for people?

I think I'm in the teens. The only "big" ones are Midas magic, and Moonpath. (P.S. Get Moonpath.) The rest are basically cosmetic mods, one for a new player base and one for more follower control. (I want to make them all move into my house.)

[Calemyr]

This one looks interesting, but I worry about the spells being too powerful. How does it affect balance?

The spells vary, and if you arrange for 100% Fortify Destruction, it becomes sickningly overpowered with a few spells, but it mainly just varies things so you have more options for attack and summoning and whatnot.

A few that I've rather liked:

Elemental Bolt: Literally my favorite spell. Just a standard journeyman missile spell in the form of a purple arrow. Stylish and useful and not initially overpowered. However, it classifies as both a frost and shock spell, so the augment lines for both elements buff it.

Bound Pickaxe: Used to be a permanent fixture on my quicklist, though I don't use it now that I've found a mod that lets you mine using the flames spell, which is more fun.

Bound Dagger: Because let's face it, the game needed one.

Ray Spells: Ray of Frost or Heat along with greater versions of each. An alternative to the generic novice frost and fire spells, does the same damage for the same cost, but fires as a thin long range beam rather than a short range cone. It's just style.

Meteor Storm: Not a gameplay spell in my book, but this spell is fun for all the reasons the MiRV was in Fallout 3. Go into godmode, point up, and just keep firing, then look down and enjoy the destruction as the meteors return to earth in all their explosive glory.

[Morty]

I see. I installed it. We'll see how it turns out...

[Blackdrop]

I thought that was

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Durnehviir. I don't remeber facing any Reaper, just some Keepers

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Durnehvirr is the Boss Battle of the Soul Cairn. The reaper is the Bonus Boss that is fought after you collect the Reaper Soul Fragment(s? I don't remember if their is more then one) and bringing them to a location in the Soul Cairn.

Sort of like the dragon in Blackreach, but more complicated.

[Triaxx]

I love Midas mostly for it's Force Push/Pull spells. And it's Open spells, and ray spells are always fun. But nothing is more entertaining than watching Meteor slamming into groups of enemies from above.

I ask about the house mods, because I'm currently assembling a castle, intended for a Thane of Whiterun, who has returned from Sovngarde after destroying Alduin. A sort of ultimate reward.

I can make it huge and shiny, because it's going to be built for you, so it's not some renovated ruin, or log cabin in the woods that just happens to be abandoned. I'm going to set it up so you can build a wizards tower, a warriors castle, or a thieves den. Plus decorations for good, and evil characters as well as neutral ones. Of course it's not going to be easy to do.

Of course the plans are going to be pretty complex.

[Milo v3]

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Durnehvirr is the Boss Battle of the Soul Cairn. The reaper is the Bonus Boss that is fought after you collect the Reaper Soul Fragment(s? I don't remember if their is more then one) and bringing them to a location in the Soul Cairn.

Sort of like the dragon in Blackreach, but more complicated.

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I needed three Reaper Soul Fragments.

[Abscondcrow]

Yo everyone! So I just got Skyrim for my X-box. I had Oblivion on my pc, never finished it though, dunno why, as I love it.

I haven't started yet, as my grandfather is sleeping on the couch by the television, so I decided I'd come and post up in hya! That's "Up in here" for all you normal people.

In oblivion, my most loved character ended up being an Argonian sword fighter who, quite frankly, sucked. Why? I refused to grind. I just wanted to do the quests, and if it didn't work out? Too bad. Reload, try again. So I'm gonna be doing it abit differently this time. Raiding dungeons, grindingLater game AND doing quests will all be part of this. Not entirely sure what build I want to go with yet, but I'm thinking melee warrior again, since it's what I'm comfortable with.

So anyway! Any suggestions as to race/class combination? I'm open to anything, really.