The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Tips & Guide
It's time to begin your adventures in the lands of Skyrim, but are you ready for this? Sure, you could run out and buy the tome-sized strategy guide for half of a mint, or you could take these easy-to-digest tips with you and let the game itself walk you through each specific quest. Go for the latter! Here we go:
Character Creation
In Skyrim, character creation is much easier than before, with fewer things that must be decided immediately. Really, the only true RPG-type thing you have to choose before the tutorial is complete is your character's race; gender and appearance are of course chosen, but the only thing affecting stats is the race. The game itself doesn't give you a precise list of bonuses for each race, so check that out here. Each race also has one to three special abilities, some of which are passive, some of which are activated through the "Powers" menu under Magic.
Note that you're not choosing major/minor skills anymore, and all skill-ups contribute to your level increases - although building your skills with fewer points in them will contribute less, and higher skills make bigger gains to your level-up progress. Additionally, what used to be your Birthsign in previous Elder Scrolls games is now done at standing stones dotted throughout the land, and can be changed at any time. Finally, you don't have a full set of stats; everything has been boiled down to three much simpler ones: Health, Magicka, and Stamina.
Go Adventure!
If you want, right after the tutorial is complete and you're free to explore, you can go adventure immediately. Be careful, though, because some encounters will likely kill you quickly, including picking fights with giants and mammoths. In general, I found the best way to balance this was to spend equal time on a quest line's latest objective and then on some kind of fun, roaming adventure where I'd visit one of the points of interest that was shown on the compass. You'll find old forts filled with bandits, necromancers out in the woods, or a high-born lady out on a journey that insults you... and she may only have one weak-looking bodyguard. Point is, don't be afraid to go goofing around, as more than any previous Elder Scrolls game has done, Skyrim does a wonderful job of making meaningful, fun things happen - and your friends won't have had many of those same experiences when you are at the water cooler the next day.
A word of advice, though: save your game before trying to take on giants and mammoths.
Bleak Falls Barrow
I know that the trailers and previews have probably made you sick of seeing or hearing about Bleak Falls Barrow, the dungeon that's near to the game's starting point, but it's a good idea to go ahead and drop by there shortly after heading to the first little town of Riverwood. The shop owner there sends you on a quest into Bleak Falls Barrow, but later in the game's main quest, you'll also be sent there for something else - and you can pick this item up then as well, so you might as well make the trek into the place anyway. It's actually a very fun dungeon and the videos did cut out big chunks of the place, so it's not all stuff you've already seen. Plus, you'll actually be playing it, which makes a world of difference as well.
Traveling
You cannot fast travel to the main cities right from the start, but early on in the main quest, you get an objective to make the walk out to the city of Whiterun. Near the stables outside Whiterun is a dude with a horse-drawn carriage, and you can pay him to take you to any of the rest of the game's cities for a fee, and once you've gone one time, subsequent visits can be made using the fast travel system for free. If you just want to see some cool cities early on, bring a few hundred gold and visit that carriage operator to check things out.
Whiterun
The first major city most players will visit includes several things you should note. The main quest begins in earnest up at Dragonstone, the castle up at the top of the city. The Companions, a warrior guild with an interesting secret, are also at the far end of town. Finally, you can additionally pick up one of three henchmen to join you on your quests, but the easiest one to get is probably Uthgerd in the Bannered Mare Tavern. Beat her in a bar-brawl fistfight (which is easy enough to do by simply backing up when she swings, then counter attacking when she whiffs) and not only will she join you as a party member, but she'll actually pay you a hundred gold. Another woman in another tavern asks you to pay her 500 gold to begin, but she's no better in a fight, and finally, if you complete all of the main plotline's Whiterun-centered quests, the Jarl will assign you a henchman if you like.
Henchmen
Having a "party member" in Skyrim is a little like Fallout 3, but it's important to point out that in this game, your buddy can die. When your henchman falls in combat, he or she will fall to one knee, and can get up and fight again after a while, but if they take a lot of additional damage while they're down, they can die - and as far as I know, there's no way to resurrect them. Also, it's actually quite easy to kill your henchmen with poorly-placed weapon swings or sneak-critical arrows, so be careful in combat. Keep saves handy in case your buddy dies, because even if you didn't like that person anyway, how are you gonna carry out all that extra loot you've been dumping into their inventory during every dungeon run?
Speaking of loot!
Your henchmen can carry a lot of loot - about as much as you can. All you've got to do is talk to them and they will carry stuff for you, and you can claim it all back later to sell or store. On that note, it's important to point out that if you're ever considering making dragon-bone gear, you might leave about 50-60lb free in either your inventory or your henchman's, as those dragon bones and scales can be mighty heavy...
Where to start quests
The Companions are in Whiterun, the Thieves Guild are in Riften, the Mages College is in Winterhold, and I unlocked the Dark Brotherhood questline by talking to tavernkeepers about rumors, but you can also take a carriage to Riften and talking to the guy that accosts you just inside the city - ask him about the Dark Brotherhood and you will get a lead. You'll also unlock quests by talking to people, sometimes about what can seem to be the most inane stuff.
Required Reading
Read books in the game, even if you just hit it and quit it immediately . Books with a value of over 40 gold generally will give you a single skill-up in the topic that they're about, although unlike Fallout 3, hitting different copies of the same book multiple times does not net you additional skill-ups. Additionally, keep on the lookout for books sitting out on their own rather than in a pile or bookshelf, as those are often the skill-granting books. There are even some that actually begin quests! One such example is a book called Legend of Red Eagle in the Archanaceum in Winterhold's Mage College. There are others out there, too.
Hunting and Sniping
The Archery skill gives you additional bonuses and abilities that help you become a master marksman, but to start, keep in mind that in Skyrim, headshots don't really count - it's all about making sure an enemy is unaware and that you're successfully sneaking for your first major hit. After that, it's up to you to try and take another shot before the enemy even turns around to look for you (which is very doable with most enemies), close the distance with a melee weapon, or just charge in with lightning from your fingertips. But at first, just getting a center-of-mass hit while sneaking is a great start. And keep in mind that the game doesn't require you to account for "bullet drop" - put the crosshair directly on what you want to hit for best results.
Going offense
Having a shield is very handy in many situations, but if you're fighting enemies that are significantly weaker than you, then you might be better off with a spell in your offhand instead of a shield. Skyrim's combat is at its best when you make use of some of its newly-bestowed freedoms, and having the ability to independently use weapons and magic is the one of the biggest new freedoms.
Hotkeying
On 360 or PS3, there aren't a lot of hotkey slots, but you've got a couple to play with. If you're swapping between a two-hander and a bow often, those are great choices to map to the D-pad left/right options. If you're doing a one-hander and a shield and want to swap to a two-handed weapon like a bow or greatsword, then hotkey the two weapons and the shield should pop up when you equip the one-hander.
Spells get a little funkier, and you'll quickly find that you need to use the up-arrow favorites menu to do most everything. Bethesda probably could have set up some kind of configurable radial quick menu instead, but this is all we get. PC gamers, of course, can hotkey any spell, shield, weapon, dragon shout, or innate power to their full set of number keys.
Fighting Dragons
Unless you've got a death wish or a very powerful character, you won't like find that standing directly in front of a dragon and wailing away with melee attacks is very successful. I've found the most success in melee by standing near the back of the dragon's wings, using power attacks as much as I can before the dragon goes airborne again. The tail hurts quite a bit, and you don't want to be so close to the dragon's front that he can still turn his neck and get you with his breath, so the merely mild damage you'll take from him slamming his wings into you is often the best spot. Run around front for the finishing blow if you really want to try and trigger a cutscene - not that it does anything special, but it does look pretty badass.
Fighting Giants
If you've seen the videos of people trying to fight giants early on and getting ragdolled mile-high in to the air, you'll probably want to take them on yourself at some point. Even when relatively weak you can do it if you can separate one giant away from the rest of the camp, as you can sprint in short bursts to avoid his ground-slam attacks. Keep an eye on your stamina meter and only use power attacks if you have an excess of stamina because you'll need it to dash out of the way of the giant's own swings. And even if you use a shield, you might as well put it away and use whatever damaging magic you can in your off-hand, as the shield won't likely do a lot of good against attacks that take most of your health at a minimum.
Note that giants sometimes have good stuff in chests in their camp, but the corpses themselves don't often have anything too special. If you're looking for loot, giant camps don't really seem to be the best places to get it.
Dragon shouts
These immensely powerful abilities are tons of fun to use, and the use no magicka; each dragon shout has a cooldown timer that must expire before you can use another, and that timer is represented graphically in the compass border at the top of your screen. I don't want to spoil too many dragon shouts, but the first one you get is called Unrelenting Blow, and it's pretty handy right off the bat. For example, if you are sneaking around with a bow equipped and an enemy discovers you and gets in your face, pop a quick Unrelenting Blow before switching to melee weapons, as you'll stagger your enemy and they'll recover right around the time that you're readying your first melee swing.
Subsequent power levels of Unrelenting Blow stagger enemies even longer and can send them flying off cliffs or just ragdolling off of a nearby wall, allowing you to charge in with a power attack to take off a huge chunk of health. In nearly every fight there's a good use for one of your dragon shouts, and the only downside is that you aren't really building your characters' skills when doing damage with them.
Crafting
Unless you're speed-running through the main quest, you should be goofing around with the game's crafting systems. At the very least, use grindstones and the required metal bars to sharpen your weapons, but you can also use workbenches to improve armor. You can do a lot more than this with the Smithing skill, but just improving what you've got is a great start. Don't forget to disenchant magical items to learn new enchanting recipes - then you can enchant new gear with those same properties you captured originally.
With that in mind, if you're planning on doing crafting, pick up everything you can use to make potions, armor, weapons, and more. Even if you don't use the stuff, selling it to vendors can be somewhat profitable. Just make sure to remember to loot and hold onto alchemy ingredients, gems, ores, metal bars, leather, hides, and pelts. Converting them into even the most basic of items every time you return to town (Whiterun makes this easy since all the crafting tables you need are pretty close to the front door) brings your skill up without requiring you to stockpile a bunch of junk in your inventory.
Buying a house
Once you get a short ways into the main quest, the Jarl of Whiterun gives you the right to buy property in town. The house is named Breezehome and it costs a rather steep 5000 gold, but if you don't spend money on anything else and sell most of the decently-valued items you come across in the first few dungeons and combat areas, you can collect that much cash in your first several hours of play. The game warns players that the only truly secure chests for storing your gear is inside houses you own - I swear I remember the same warning in previous Bethesda RPGs and it wasn't true, but I wouldn't want to be the first one to find out the hard way.
And if you do purchase Breezehome in Whiterun, you'll probably be wondering where the place is. It's the second house on the right when you walk in Whiterun's front gate, next to the armorer's place.
Skills and Perks
Given enough time and effort, you can maximize every skill at 100, but there's a limited amount of perks you'll have, so spend those wisely. The cap is supposed to be at 50 (making for a total of 50 perks), but there's a soft cap above that where each level takes vastly more time to reach than the last one. Here's the point: level up using whatever skills you want, but choose your perks very wisely.
It might be obvious to some, but you should be picking perks that work together. There are a ton of great combinations, especially where one perk will work nicely with a perk from another skill tree, but just keep things working together. Finally, don't worry about spreading your perks out too thin across multiple skills early on - the perks' skill requirements kind of push you towards that anyway. But even as an all-out warrior, spending points on perks like the Destruction one that cuts Novice-level destruction spell costs in half can still be extremely helpful.
Sneaking
Right from the beginning of the game, sneaking can be very viable - even if you're stumbling around in heavy armor all the time. Remember that if you're not moving and no one has you in their line of sight, you're pretty much guaranteed to be considered hidden. And even if you want to charge into a fight with a huge two-handed hammer, it might be a good idea first to sneak, pull out your bow, and get a double-damage critical with it right from the start.
Stealing
Stealing can be very profitable, and it might be easier than you think. It's generally pretty easy to do things like open locked cases (even with weak lockpick skill on tough locks, assuming you learn how to play the lockpicking mini-game well and have a stock of picks to go through). Very little of the gear you can grab from friendly villages, castles, and cities is going to make you a fortune, but it builds up over time. It's also important to point out that unless you're seeing red text and the word "steal", then you can pick it up as if it were yours in the first place - and you might be surprised at what kinds of items were not marked by the developers as owned by someone else.
Exploiting Skill Trainers
In the initial version of Skyrim, a character with half-decent pickpocketing skill can open up a pretty powerful exploit by training up skills at skill trainers, then stealing all the money back. The important part is to steal the money back after every point you train, because if the total gold the trainer is holding gets too high, your chance to steal will drop to zero percent. I expect this particular little trick to expire or become more difficult after the first patch, because even though it was intended to be put in the game, getting 100% free training with only a modicum of pickpocket skill probably wasn't intended.
