Adventuring Tips

• Posted by RuneRed November 28, 2011 - 578 views

  Some Skyrim Adventuring Tips:

   

  I wrote this for anyone wanting to improve their survivability.  Perhaps even the most seasoned adventurer may find a bit of knowledge here.  The tips herein are mostly general in nature, not specific tips about perks, character building, crafting, etc. – entire articles can be written about any of those; although I may have included a comment or two.

   

  Dungeon crawling. 

  If you have a companion, have them wait behind you a bit, this will give you a chance to scout ahead – you can always run back to them if you get into trouble.  Gage your enemy – see combat,  below.

  Sneak. Sneaking will often give a tactical advantage – you’ll see the enemy before they see you.  Even if you’re not very good at sneaking; you often will be able to get a free range attack before you’re detected, or at least you’ll have a warning of nearby enemy.  Stick close to the walls.  Not only will this increase your sneak because of the shadows but most traps are located in the middle of corridors.

  Traps.  Sneaking will help you detect floor traps because of your reduced speed.  These come in a few varieties.  A trip rope – these will often cause the ceiling to come down, or have some other nasty effect.  Pressure plates – these are slightly raised and have a design upon them - easy to see.  They trigger a wide variety of dangers, such as swinging gates, darts, etc.  Sometimes it is possible to lure enemies into their own traps.  Care has to be taken to maneuver any companions around traps (I wish there was a way to flag traps, so that companions could see what you’ve found and avoid them automatically).  If you can ascertain the effect of a trap, you can often set them off, avoiding danger – this will help companions by-pass them.  Nearly all traps can be activated from a distance, with a well place bow shot.  A word of caution, many traps reset – especially the pressure plates.  Also note some chests are trapped.

  Runes.  These glow slightly and are often hard to avoid, such as in a narrow hall or just outside a door.  Fortunately they can be ‘disarmed’; give yourself a little distance and cast a damage type spell at the rune.  This will activate the rune, so you may by-pass it.  If you have rune spells, always have one cast.  I will move past my own rune spells, and run back past them (toward my waiting companion, who is probably advancing toward the enemy, despite my ‘wait’ command).  Your runes can also be triggered by spells, so be aware of this when fighting mages or casting spells (don’t have them on a direct line with you and the enemy).

  Chests.  Look for traps around the edges of the chest itself.  These can be disarmed using your lock picking skill.  Sometimes traps are on the ground near the chest, so be careful.  I often open traps at an angle, instead of directly in front. Carry lots of lock picks – buy all you can from stores, until you have an adequate supply.

   

  Combat.

  Gage your enemies.  Dungeons have a few levels of enemies, with the weaker enemies often near the entrance (sometimes outside).  If I have to use healing potions/food during a fight with the minions, then that means it is time to leave the area/dungeon (I play at master level and dead is dead).  An occasional heal during combat with multiple minions/lieutenants is acceptable, but if I do this frequently, I leave the area/dungeon to come back after I’ve gain some levels – else the boss will prove too difficult.

  Stay healed, opening your inventory pauses the game, and allows you to heal fully and refresh that magicka and stamina too.  If you use magic weapons, carry a non-magic back-up.  Use your non-magical weapon against minions or easy kills.  Don’t waste your weapon’s magical charge on skeevers.

  Combat, melee.  Move, don’t stand still.  Enemy power attacks can often be avoided. If you are fighting multiple opponents, try to keep them in front of you, in a line as much as possible.  This reduces the number of attackers currently engaging you.  Kill wounded enemies.  Wounded enemies hurt you as much as fully healed enemies, dead ones don’t.  Try to kill the ones you have wounded instead of attacking a fresh opponent, whenever possible.

  Combat, ranged, bow.  If you are attacking from stealth, move back after firing your bow.  The enemy often will head toward the origin of the shot (which is good to know if you use runes).  Firing an arrow past an enemy can misdirect them, however.  Often times they will give up looking for you, allowing you to make another surprise attack.

  Combat, magick.  Tactics with magic can vary a lot, so I’ll try to stay brief.  Your magicka rate is faster when you are NOT in combat; this prevents the player from having to wait extra minutes between battles, but can mislead the player about their magicka regen rate.  Try to be at max before engaging. Use potions during battle if necessary.  Also, some unusual magical combos exist (eg. Aspect of Terror perk and fire damage), so be on the lookout for these.

  Pay attention to what type of opponent you are fighting if you are using destruction magic.  Some creatures have a resistance to particular types of magic and may be vulnerable to other types. Undead, for example, don’t seem to be affected much by cold, but fire really hurts them.  Many of these are logical (fire atronachs aren’t affected much by fire), while others just have to be learned through experimentation. 

   

  Cooking.

  I had a friend that didn’t want to get into all the ‘cooking’ recipes.  If you don’t want to get involved then just collect all you can of the three following ingredients: Cabbages (very abundant), Red Apples (fairly common), and Salt (limiting factor – buy all you can from merchants until you have an adequate supply).  Then just make Apple-Cabbage Stew (+10 health/+15 stamina).  Another favorite (common) recipe is vegetable soup (cabbage, potato, leek, tomato (No Salt!)).  They’re not as good as potions, but the ingredients are much more plentiful/inexpensive.

  But some recipes, such as venison stew or vegetable soup, give back 1 stamina per second, and they last for 12 minutes.  This doesn't seem like much, but 1 stamina point is all that is required to execute a power attack.  This means you can spam power attack and never have to worry about your stamina (at least until the soup duration runs out).

   

  Save often. 

  The game still has a few glitches so save your game.  I also save before maneuvering my companions around traps (and this is one of the few times I will reload a game if they die from triggering a ‘discovered’ trap – again we should be able to warn our companions of a discovered trap, and they should be able to avoid it automatically).

   

  I hope this helps.  Remember to place any of your own tips in the comments below.