The Elder Scrolls: It's the IX Divines, you milk-drinkers

[Calemyr]

Farkus sent me to go beat the **** out of Nazeem

And so Farkus is obviously your favorite.

[NineThePuma]

The entire argument is moot because of pacing issues in every quest line, with the possible exception of the dark brotherhood.

Turns out that having your initiation mission for the companions reveal the big plot twist is bad writing, who knew? Having each of the Quest Givers interactable and have them establish a relationship with you and adventure with them, have the companions aggressively advertise that they -always- work in pairs, and they regularly try to send someone with you, and then as a closing point, at the end of the questline (which still happens essentially the same way, just with better pacing and more chance to get to know people), some new recruits show up and you take -them- on an initiation quest. It would move the focus away from "Here there be werewolves" and instead it's a story about passing the torch and generations.

The Thieve's Guild should have ditched the "25 years ago" line and had everything happen in front of you: you come into the thieves guild along with Brynjolf, you get to know everyone and work alongside them for a good while, and then the Event happens and things rapidly spiral down with only Mercer seeming to be able to hold things together and pull jobs off. And then you have the current questline start up and things continue on. This makes everything breaking down much more... poignant and it makes Maven Blakcbriar look like less of an ass (Her threatening you with the Thieves guild carries weight) and she serves as a patron for you to; when things get rough, she has your (the guild in general, but you're included) back.

The Mage's College has two problems: the first is that its scope is way the **** beyond what every other questline other than the main questline does (Ie, Save The World Again), and it... doesn't actually have any sort of "learn magic" part. Of course, the latter is more easily resolved than the former. Simply put a lot of emphasis on being able to help everyone with their experiments. Half the bloody mages in the place have some experiment or another going, and you get involved with them anyway. It would be much more believable for the final position you're given if everyone in the place basically went "well, ****, they've been helping me with this **** since day 1, of course they can have the administrative position" ; have the **** with the Eye of Magnus come up -way the **** later- instead of off the bat.

Bard's college deserves a mention. I don't have any plans for it, but it deserves a mention.

Assassins are honestly pretty fine on their own.

[veti]

I like Serana.

I hate most everything she does. The whining about the weather, the constant necromancy, the 'yes? what do you need?' every time I pause to look around - these all get very, very old with alarming speed.

But she does at least have some interesting background, and a personality. And, it turns out, an unpleasant personality is way better than none at all. The only other character in the game I find myself liking half so much is Master Neloth, in Dragonborn.

The entire argument is moot because of pacing issues in every quest line, with the possible exception of the dark brotherhood.

I think you've put your finger on it. "Pacing", that's the issue. Bethesda wanted each questline to be completable by anyone, in any timeframe they wanted (which was an unbelievably stupid design ambition, but who am I to second-guess their marketing, I'm just a customer). By far the easiest way to do that is to keep each questline short, so you can test it, make sure it works in itself, then just make sure it's ring-fenced so that it doesn't matter if you "forget" about Ancano and just go adventuring with the Staff of Magnus for six months before getting back to save the world, and job done.

The biggest issue is that you can't be allowed to "break" any of the questlines, because they've got this story to tell, that's what they've recorded the dialogue for, and that's what's damn' well going to happen no matter what you may think about it.

("Voice acting" has been the bane of this game. If we went back to reading dialogue, a la Morrowind, it could be so much better. The same was true in Oblivion, but that had bigger problems. Skyrim has mostly resolved the other issues - in many ways, it's the game Oblivion should have been - but this one hasn't been reduced at all.)

Turns out that having your initiation mission for the companions reveal the big plot twist is bad writing, who knew? Having each of the Quest Givers interactable and have them establish a relationship with you and adventure with them, have the companions aggressively advertise that they -always- work in pairs, and they regularly try to send someone with you, and then as a closing point, at the end of the questline (which still happens essentially the same way, just with better pacing and more chance to get to know people), some new recruits show up and you take -them- on an initiation quest. It would move the focus away from "Here there be werewolves" and instead it's a story about passing the torch and generations.

Agreed, that would be better writing. It wouldn't completely resolve the question of "why can't I kill these filthy werewolves?", but it would go a long way to feeling less railroaded. Unfortunately, it would require significantly more scripting and voice acting.

What saves the Companions for me is that at least you do have the option to bow out, not become a werewolf and join the Circle, just give up on the questline and go do your own thing at that point. Which is way more freedom than the Thieves' or Mages' questlines give you.

The Thieve's Guild should have ditched the "25 years ago" line and had everything happen in front of you: you come into the thieves guild along with Brynjolf, you get to know everyone and work alongside them for a good while, and then the Event happens and things rapidly spiral down with only Mercer seeming to be able to hold things together and pull jobs off. And then you have the current questline start up and things continue on. This makes everything breaking down much more... poignant and it makes Maven Blakcbriar look like less of an ass (Her threatening you with the Thieves guild carries weight) and she serves as a patron for you to; when things get rough, she has your (the guild in general, but you're included) back.

Yes, that would be better storytelling, and maybe it was the original idea - but even more so than the Companions questline, it would require enormous amounts of testing and voice acting.

I've come to suspect that, originally, the game was supposed to be set quite soon after the Great War, and the datelines were drawn up on the assumption that the year was 176 or 177. Then someone at Bethesda said "176, what is 176? Make it 200, that's a nice big easy-to-advertise number". And that's why there's this huge blind spot in the history where pretty much everyone (except Cicero) seems to have been twiddling their thumbs for two decades.

I'd love it if Maven Blackbriar were marginally more sympathetic. I can't remember who, but someone commented of her that the only explanation for her behaviour is that she knows she's programmed to be invulnerable.

The Mage's College has two problems: the first is that its scope is way the **** beyond what every other questline other than the main questline does (Ie, Save The World Again), and it... doesn't actually have any sort of "learn magic" part. Of course, the latter is more easily resolved than the former. Simply put a lot of emphasis on being able to help everyone with their experiments. Half the bloody mages in the place have some experiment or another going, and you get involved with them anyway. It would be much more believable for the final position you're given if everyone in the place basically went "well, ****, they've been helping me with this **** since day 1, of course they can have the administrative position" ; have the **** with the Eye of Magnus come up -way the **** later- instead of off the bat.

That would improve it, but honestly I think any questline that ends with me being the archmage is out of order here. That's supposed to be an important position, surely the archmage has duties that involve them actually being present in the college from time to time? I'd rather see Mirabelle survive and inherit the position. (At the point she dies, you've spent much more time with Tolfdir than Mirabelle, so his death would have more emotional impact if that's the point.)

Better yet, there could be an election for the top job, and you could choose whether to support one of the other candidates, or run on your own behalf.

Failing that, I'd be perfectly happy to see Faralda or Tolfdir take it. (There's a mod called 'Archmage Tolfdir', but it's not very well done.)

Bard's college deserves a mention. I don't have any plans for it, but it deserves a mention.

I quite like the Bard's College. Sure, it could do with some mention of singing, music, entertainment, poetry (beyond your half-assed attempts at forgery at the end of the first quest); but at least it doesn't require you to rise meteorically through the ranks to take over the whole place in three days. And you get actual training as a reward. Not in anything particularly bardic, of course, but you can't have everything.

Assassins are honestly pretty fine on their own.

Except for the whole "being a bunch of amoral cutthroats whom I'd rather just kill outright than actually join up with", I agree - their questline is the best written by far.

[Gaelbert]

Except for the whole "being a bunch of amoral cutthroats whom I'd rather just kill outright than actually join up with", I agree - their questline is the best written by far.

They're amoral, but their characters are actually entertaining and have personalities. I could name 4-5 DB characters and describe them off the top of my head, I don't think I could do that with any other faction. I realized this in my most recent playthrough, where I did the "good" thing and killed them all off. Now I feel like I missed out on a lot of content and kind of wish I didn't, even if it doesn't fit with my character.

[Duck999]

Point 1: Having you play through the history of the thieves guild may have been the original plan. The obvious flaw I see in that is that the beginning would likely get tedious or boring, especially in replaying.

Point 2: The assassins guild is just as amoral as any other assassins. Also, they have relatively greatly built personalities, which makes me like it more.

[DomaDoma]

The biggest issue is that you can't be allowed to "break" any of the questlines, because they've got this story to tell, that's what they've recorded the dialogue for, and that's what's damn' well going to happen no matter what you may think about it.

Seriously, the whole mages' quest was kind of hobbled by my inability to inform my colleagues they were totally about to be blown up or something because of the giant ominous artifact and should probably at least get out of the blast radius if putting the thing back wouldn't do any good. Also, undersketching of the Psijic role, but by the point I realized that, it'd already lost me by depriving me of the one sane dialogue option you'd have provided you actually gave a fig what happened to the College.

[veti]

Seriously, the whole mages' quest was kind of hobbled by my inability to inform my colleagues they were totally about to be blown up or something because of the giant ominous artifact and should probably at least get out of the blast radius if putting the thing back wouldn't do any good. Also, undersketching of the Psijic role, but by the point I realized that, it'd already lost me by depriving me of the one sane dialogue option you'd have provided you actually gave a fig what happened to the College.

For me, the point where disbelief becomes unhooked from "suspension" and goes crashing onto the rocks below - doesn't come until near the very end, when you get back to the college with the Staff, and there's this glowing force field enveloping the whole place which only you can batter through, so you do, and you get inside...

... and once inside, you find half the faculty casually strolling about the quad. WTF, guys?

(One time, I had a random dragon show up at the same time - before the force field went down. Somehow, it was able to fly through or over the force field and settled on the walls of the college, glaring down at us. Impasse: neither its breath nor my arrows could pierce the force field. It didn't seem to pay any attention to anyone inside, so I guess they only spawn as you cross the bridge, possibly at the moment you take the field down.)

Then there's the moment right at the end where you kill Ancano, and talk to Tolfdir, and you're railroaded into saying "What's the next plot hook?", and he replies "I have no idea what to do next" - then sort of turns to the door as if to say "... except to wait for the deus ex machina that must be about to turn up". Would it have been so hard for him to say "We must find a way to secure the Eye permanently. I'll call a meeting of the faculty, we must be able to work something out, even if it's just to bury it back in Saarthal and seal it properly this time." - before Psijic Sue warps in and takes the thing away.

[Anxe]

I had an issue with the Mage's Guild questline because I realized Ancano was bad news early on. I tried to assassinate him in his sleep, but he ended up going all invulnerable NPC on me. WELP, Guess we have to let him stab us in the butt before we can kill him!

[DomaDoma]

Well, yes, that too. I tend to need something solid to charge characters with before I try killing them, even if they are uncomfortably-inquisitive Thalmor, but yeah, that's strictly my Boy-Scout playstyle. It's obviously the advisable thing to do.

[veti]

I had an issue with the Mage's Guild questline because I realized Ancano was bad news early on. I tried to assassinate him in his sleep, but he ended up going all invulnerable NPC on me. WELP, Guess we have to let him stab us in the butt before we can kill him!

But that's the same for all the quests. We're always moaning that there are so many unkillable NPCs littering - just about everywhere.

Even if you join the Legion and go trying to clean out the Stormcloak camps, you'll find (at least one) unkillable officer in each camp. Or if you try to kill Ulfric. Or join the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves' Guild and then try to turn on them. Or...

We've all been there. People will die when they're scripted to die, dammit, and not a moment earlier.

There are a very, very few NPCs who are irritating enough that people want to kill them, and you can kill them. Nazeem and Heimskr are often mentioned in this context, also Sibbi Black-Briar. But nothing ever follows from their deaths, nobody misses them, nobody is either glad or sorry they're gone - in Sibbi's case, for instance, you can't even tell the woman who's hiding from him that it's safe for her to show her face again. So at best, it's kinda pointless.

[Avilan the Grey]

I like Serana.

I hate most everything she does. The whining about the weather, the constant necromancy, the 'yes? what do you need?' every time I pause to look around - these all get very, very old with alarming speed.

Funny thing that, I find her having a GOOD personality (genuinely, I do), and I love her chattiness. At least she's not like Mjoll, who has to bring up Grimsever every 0.23 seconds...

Edit: And I am sure Ancano is written like a mustashe twirling villain on purpose, but it is kind of jarring that nobody, nowhere, can see what he is and you can't tell anyone. He The Joker class of Obviusly Evil. Only less crazy.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Even if you join the Legion and go trying to clean out the Stormcloak camps, you'll find (at least one) unkillable officer in each camp.

There's a mod for this one.

[DomaDoma]

We've all been there. People will die when they're scripted to die, dammit, and not a moment earlier.

There are a very, very few NPCs who are irritating enough that people want to kill them, and you can kill them. Nazeem and Heimskr are often mentioned in this context, also Sibbi Black-Briar. But nothing ever follows from their deaths, nobody misses them, nobody is either glad or sorry they're gone - in Sibbi's case, for instance, you can't even tell the woman who's hiding from him that it's safe for her to show her face again. So at best, it's kinda pointless.

Scripted consequences to off-script killings would be a gigantic hassle. But - I haven't played Morrowind, this is just what I gather happens - the whole "now you don't have a story" thing, letting you decide whether killing Character X is worth forgoing the quest entirely, is actually pretty acceptable. Unless it's easy to unwittingly screw up the main quest, I guess. I haven't played the thing.

[NEO|Phyte]

Scripted consequences to off-script killings would be a gigantic hassle. But - I haven't played Morrowind, this is just what I gather happens - the whole "now you don't have a story" thing, letting you decide whether killing Character X is worth forgoing the quest entirely, is actually pretty acceptable. Unless it's easy to unwittingly screw up the main quest, I guess. I haven't played the thing.

Basically how it works in Morrowind is that if someone dies that is important to the main quest, it gives you some "the threads of fate have been severed" message letting you know that you've gone and screwed up.

[NineThePuma]

Worth noting that Delphine is in the first town you go to.

The first town that doesn't have any guards until you add the guards.

[Calemyr]

Funny thing that, I find her having a GOOD personality (genuinely, I do), and I love her chattiness. At least she's not like Mjoll, who has to bring up Grimsever every 0.23 seconds...

Edit: And I am sure Ancano is written like a mustashe twirling villain on purpose, but it is kind of jarring that nobody, nowhere, can see what he is and you can't tell anyone. He The Joker class of Obviusly Evil. Only less crazy.

I like Mjoll, too. You can't get her until pretty late, but she's one of the most interesting followers in vanilla Skyrim. Her big problems are: A) Her skillset is two-handed, but Grimsever is one-handed, B) she is scripted to have something to say at least once every half hour, and not enough lines recorded to keep that from getting to "Arrow in the knee" levels of annoyance, and C) Aeron who, like Feyndahl or Sven if you step in on their rivalry, will move in wherever she makes her home (ie if you marry her).

And, yeah, Ancano is pretty freaking obvious. The entire college knows he's bad news and makes no effort to hide their annoyance at his presence, but they are obligated to let him be there. He's pretty harmless for the most part, until you happen to unearth an ancient (and possibly divine) magical artifact that was the catalyst of the Nedic-Falmer war. Nice job breaking it, hero. Next time, maybe you'll leave ancient ruins the hell alone and avoi... yeah, that's just not going to happen, is it?

Come to think of it, I'm curious: what are people's favorite followers?
The ones I usually take are:

Serana: As I've said before, more or less the complete package. Good melee and ranged offense coupled with stealth and the Essential flag. She's got a lot of plot and definition and generally a pleasant addition to the adventure in my book. I do tend to use Amazing Follower Tweaks or Ultimate Follower Overhaul, which allows me to teach her the Soul Cairn summon spells, which she conveniently favors over her zombie spells.

Lydia: The only follower that is canonically bound to you (she joins you as part of the main quest line), she joins (potentially) early and is also a powerful tank and fairly pleasant (with the exception of her sarcasm over carrying your burdens). She gets a lot of new lines (including some alternate inventory quotes) in Dragonborn and is actually one of the more interesting characters to bring along there.

Feyndahl: One of the two earliest followers available, he beats Sven out by not only having useful skills as his class skills (enchanting and smithing don't help in a follower) but also being a trainer, making it pretty painless to get a 50 archery skill. Not very interesting, but his high stealth and high archery make him a great companion for stealthy characters, especially early on.

Aranea: The priestess of Azura talks like Storm from the X-Men, but she's also just as much of a magical powerhouse and relatively early to recruit. Besides, recruiting her is kinda painless - you're not stealing her from her life, you're helping her find a new one after Azura decides to shut up for once.

Erik the Slayer: There aren't a lot of interesting male characters to my knowledge, but Erik is at the top of my very short list. He has a lot to say, has good skills, and you are helping him achieve his life-long dream by hiring him. If only stayed hired, he'd be a favorite of mine.

Aela the Huntress: How can you not like the feral amazon? Her skills are good, she has stealth, her voice acting is good, she's just overall pretty awesome. Her only real problems are that you can't recruit her until you complete the Companions guild chain and that she's skilled in light armor but insists on wearing heavy armor (that fetching Ancient Nordic armor) instead.

[AdmiralCheez]

Come to think of it, I'm curious: what are people's favorite followers?

I actually like Brelyna as a follower. She doesn't have a lot to say, but as a mage, she's really good as backup in a fight. She'll typically summon an atronach to help, and then just hang back and sling spells at the enemy while I engage them close up. It avoids a lot of the typical issues people have with followers, where they ruin stealth and rush in to fight and get in your way. Only problem is you have to do the first two quests of the college, go through Saarthal and then get turned into a horse for her to join you. But considering J'Zargo wants you to go and hunt down undead to test his scrolls, and Onmund has you go waaaay out to a random dungeon, she's the easiest of the three to recruit.

[Winter_Wolf]

Come to think of it, I'm curious: what are people's favorite followers?

I don't spend much time with followers, but I'll take Farkas with me if I go the Companions route. He actually seems pretty good-natured and even though he'll never turn into a wolf outside of a scripted event he's a good match for my play style.

I also like the witch you can find tucked away in the Rift, whatsit, Illia? Although she's gotten me with her ice spells more than a few times. The main problem is her return point if you let her out of her service without making her a steward at a homestead.

But really, followers have way too much trouble keeping up with me when I break out cross-country (mountaineering). By the time they catch up, any nasty that I've stumbled across is already slain, looted, or skinned. I do love that they tend to soak up a lot of ambush encounters with Skyrim fauna.

[Calemyr]

Followers are a lot better with mods, for the most part.

Ultimate Follower Overhaul and Amazing Follower Tweaks both increase their usefulness, including the ability to teach them additional spells. AFT in particular has a feature that allows werewolves and vampire lords to shapeshift when you do. They also let you have more than one follower, for those who want to run a team of dragonslayers rather than be a solo act.

Convenient Horses has functionality that allows your follower(s) to summon their own horses to ride. Makes it a lot easier for them to keep up. The fact that you can tweak an NPC's horse to have whatever kind of coat and/or saddle you like through a dialogue option is pretty nice, and Serana gets her own nightmare mount (like Arvaak only red fire and white bone), though you can ask her not to use it because it sometimes explodes when dismissed.

Those are the ones that make the biggest difference, I find. Personally, it appeals to me to have a party of 3 interesting followers and then up the difficulty enough that four people don't automatically make every fight a cake walk (though I know some people find even legendary too easy solo). The new Blades make their base at the Lakeview Manor, a far more pleasant resort than some forgotten mountain fortress.

[Anxe]

I inserted my wife into the game so I could marry her and go on adventures with her in the game too. Prior to doing that I had Stenvar as my follower. I chose him, because he seemed like a big piece of beef that could keep the baddies off my back when I needed a breather to heal. I used Uthgerd before Stenvar, but she came down with a case of the deads when I ran into a nest of necromancers.

[veti]

I like Serana, as I said. I can live with the moaning, in exchange for some reasonably interesting dialogue and backstory. Once I finish the Dawnguard questline, though, she becomes a lot less interesting.

Lydia is great, since I got the mod that fixes her trade dialogue. She's surprisingly good at stealth. I also like the housecarl from Solitude, whatsername, Jordis. Statwise she's identical to Lydia, but her dialogue is a bit more - naive. I guess they were going for a "blonde bimbo" feel with her, but she's just too hard for the characterisation to stick.

Another one I like is Frea, from the Skaal village on Solstheim. She's a strong combination of caster and tank, and also has a small amount of slightly interesting backstory.

Edit:

Scripted consequences to off-script killings would be a gigantic hassle. But - I haven't played Morrowind, this is just what I gather happens - the whole "now you don't have a story" thing, letting you decide whether killing Character X is worth forgoing the quest entirely, is actually pretty acceptable. Unless it's easy to unwittingly screw up the main quest, I guess. I haven't played the thing.

It's pretty hard to unwittingly screw up the main quest. None of the "essential" people are normally hostile, you'd have to go out of your way to murder them, and when you do you get the warning message. (Which only applies to the main quest, by the way - you can mess up as many subquests and sidequests as you like, and the game won't ever mention it. It helps that the journal is organised differently, so failed/uncompleted quests don't nag at you like they do in Skyrim.)

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Scripted consequences to off-script killings would be a gigantic hassle. But - I haven't played Morrowind, this is just what I gather happens - the whole "now you don't have a story" thing, letting you decide whether killing Character X is worth forgoing the quest entirely, is actually pretty acceptable. Unless it's easy to unwittingly screw up the main quest, I guess. I haven't played the thing.

I beat Tribunal and the Morrowind main quest for the first time recently, and I'll say it IS easy to screw up the Main Quest, but more due to the bugs than the ability to kill plot important characters. (If you ever play it, save often and on different save files. I would have made the 'normal' mainline quest unbeatable if I hadn't and I was being very careful not to kill any NPCs unless instructed or go into any dungeons at random in case they turned out to be plot important.)

It's worth noting that Serana can be dismissed for significant chunks of Dawnguard.

But not the significant chunk I want to be rid of her for.

Dovahkiin: "Hey vampire lady I just met—Serana, right?—I'm going to go meet with my Thieves' Guild buddies and unload some gear. You're not in the Thieves' Guild so you're not allowed in our super secret hideaway. Wait here for a couple hours, 'kay?"

Serana: "No! You can't just leave me behind!"

"Lady, I'm not dismissing you, I just want you to wait for a few hours. You'll be fine."

"Nooooo!" *Serana latches on to Dovahkiin's ankle and does not let go*

*cut to the Ragged Flagon, an hour or so later*

Vex: "Sooo Guildmate...mind explaining what the deal is with your 'friend?'"

Serana: *from the floor, as she still refuses to let go of Dovahkiin's ankle* "...mine..."

I've had that happen twice, because I forgot she did it the first time. -_-

That said, she's a reasonably decent follower if you can ignore the bugs. She's competent and not very chatty, both big plusses; my first playthrough I let her tag along until she triggered the bug with the Blood Potion she drinks giving YOU vampire powers, by which point her tendency to interact with anything interactable had begun to grate.

I had fun with Mjoll too, though I eventually dropped her because of the aforementioned chattiness. I like her as a person, she's useful, and she noticed hostiles before I did a time or too. I also thoroughly enjoyed hiding my Thieves' Guild connections from her, though she probably suspected something was up when I vanished out of Breezehome late at night to visit the Meadery more than once. :P

But mostly I don't use followers, because of the issue with sneaking ("Nooo Esbern! We were going to sneak past those bandits, why did you fireball them?") and I tend to believe that the shortest path between two points is a straight line and I exercise that belief while traveling.

[Kesnit]

I use 2 companions. Serena because I have to. And the housecarl from Riften. Why do I use her? I use her for 1 quest - Boethiah's Calling.

I played for a long time on the 360 before getting Skyrim on PC (so no house mods). I like the house in Riften better than the one in Whiterun, so I always got that one as quickly as I could. Then, since I never use companions, she sat around my house all day and night, eating. As revenge for her doing nothing and eating my food, I found a purpose for her...

[TheEmerged]

I pretty much gave up on followers after this one dungeon where a trap activated, and then every time thereafter the follower got even near it they'd go hostile and start attacking me. For the most part I only used them as mules or when required (I play with almost no mods).

[Duck999]

A few problems my main has with followers.
1. I don't activate traps when I walk over them, they do.
2. I can sneak, they can't
3. I can kill a drauger death overlord. Not quite sure about them.

[NeoVid]

So, just thought I'd ask for a straight answer here instead of doing research when I could be playing: Why are my enchantments sucking so much? I'm still early in the game, so my skill's only a bit above 30, but with the Enchanting perks I've taken and the use of an Enchantment potion before any crafting sessions, it really seems like the results I get should be better. HP bonuses I craft only give me 4 freaking HP, and when I try crafting a skill-boosting necklace, it tells me that it will give me an 8% bonus, then once I've actually made it, it turns out to give a 1% bonus.

[NineThePuma]

The enchanting skill, soul size, and perks all account for things. Are you using Grand Souls?

[veti]

So, just thought I'd ask for a straight answer here instead of doing research when I could be playing: Why are my enchantments sucking so much? I'm still early in the game, so my skill's only a bit above 30, but with the Enchanting perks I've taken and the use of an Enchantment potion before any crafting sessions, it really seems like the results I get should be better. HP bonuses I craft only give me 4 freaking HP, and when I try crafting a skill-boosting necklace, it tells me that it will give me an 8% bonus, then once I've actually made it, it turns out to give a 1% bonus.

The 'base' effect for a 'Fortify Skill' enchantment is either 8% or 13%, depending on the skill. That assumes a Grand soul gem, no perks, and zero Enchantment skill.

The "net magnitude" of an enchantment is given by the formula

• base magnitude * soul multiplier * skill multiplier * (1 + Enchanter perk) * (1 + specific perk modifier)

The "skill multiplier" is a weird formula, but at 30 skill it works out as-near '1' as makes no perceptible difference. (Not until you get to about 50 skill does it reach the dizzy heights of a 5% bonus, and at 100 it's still only 25%.) So the bonuses from perks are always going to be the most important thing.

The "soul multiplier" is 1.0 (maximum) for a Black or Grand soul gem filled with a Grand soul, down to 1/12 for a Petty soul, which is what I guess you're using. When you're at the table, the magnitude you see when you select the enchantment assumes that you'll be using a Grand soul. You have to go back to the Enchantment selection after selecting the soul gem, to see what you'll actually get.

[Triaxx]

I rather like the guy you can hire in Solitude, who's name I can't recall. He's surprisingly capable, and not too chatty.

As for enchanting, for increasing skill, nothing does it like disenchanting the most expensive things you find. IE something worth 400+ gives more increase than something worth 200+.

Don't just soul trap on your own, go into Dwemer Ruins and loot the constructs, because they have lots of charged soul gems.

[NeoVid]

Aha. I had gotten the impression that the type of soul gem didn't matter, since I tried quicksaving and doing the same enchantment with different sizes of gem, and the results came out the same.

Looks like it'll be a while before I can manage good enchantments, since I don't have the chance to stock up on good gems or kill the things that would fill them yet.