I've been wanting to create a new melee character for some time, been running mages and stealthers for much to long. The recent discovery of the necromage/vampire combo by Narmis/Magebane was a perfect chance to get stuck into a new build, but i wanted to create something a little different.
After some thought ive created a 'fallen hero', a character that starts life as a noble warrior but due to an unfortunate event descends into madness and eventually, evil. A little like an elder scrolls version of Anakin Skywalker. Basically, a roleplayers wet dream.
This build will be like creating two different characters in one playthrough and will include a level 30 and a level 60 leveling guide.
Tyrial, a noble warrior destined for one hell of a fall....(artwork modified from icewind dale)
Level 30 (Good Playthrough)
Race: Breton
Stone: Lord
Major Skills: One Handed, Heavy Armor, Smithing.
Minor Skills: Illusion, Restoration.
Armor: Full imperial steel armor with the rare closed helm. (AC is 511 at level 25 without a shield)
Weapon: Steel Sword or Imperial Sword. Dawnbreaker.
Strengths: Can turn the tide of any battle with mind altering spells. Can cast healing and illusions 'on the fly' due to not being hampered by a shield. Can restore stamina in a heartbeat allowing for unlimited sprinting. Very strong melee defence right through playthrough. Strong magical defence without enchantments. 40% shout time reduction allowing for near limitless elemental fury.
Quests: The Book of Love, Frostflow Lighthouse. All elemental fury word walls. Break of Dawn. Imperial Legion questline.
Gameplay
Firstly, I wanted to create a no-nonsense build that was easy to set up, was believable as a class and certainly dynamic to play. Although i'm a major fan of the block skill i just had to remove it for this build, I wanted to be able to cast healing and illusions fast during combat and allow my heavy armor skill to develop quickly and organically (blocking hampers armor skill gain).
As far as set-up goes you get your armor gift-wrapped upon your first kill during the tutorial (if you follow Ralof), illusion spells can all be bought in Whiterun along with fast healing and turn undead. Specialising in steel smithing allows us to spend just one perk to fully customise our gear for the entire playthrough. That leaves us with just four skills to neatly and progressively enhance.
Imperial armor is pleasently durable, i easily pushed it to 511AC with a blacksmiths philter and 95 in smithing by around level 25, considering max AC is 567 this isn't shabby. This does include the 50 point bonus from the lord stone though. The rare 'spartan' imperial helm is found during Meridias quest as you enter her temple on the first corpse, make sure you pick it up to complete your look!
Tyrial and his loyal captain Lydia...
Illusion is a wonderful little skill to specialise in. With just three perks invested in illusion you can mentally dominate frost trolls, chaurus reapers, giant spiders, sabre cats and bears for your entire playthrough, that should be a big weight off anyones mind. Muffle is a spell that i try to keep active at all times, as it often gives you chance to survey your environment and stops you being ambushed. Muffle is also illusions main exp spell and will level it impressively.
Restoration is tricky to develop, especially because we want to eventually learn necromage (lvl 70), the solution is simple, switch into an undead killer whenever you encounter them, turn everything, even if you dont really need to. Turn lesser undead is available in Whiterun early on and can turn both normal and restless draugr making it very useful right upto level 30. Training is also handy for all the spare cash thats going to pile up, i think i bought 10 levels of restoration during this playthrough, the rest of the money went on smithing.
The amulet of Talos is available the first time you get to Solitude on the corpse of the executed guard, ive worn it ever since as combined with the blessing of Talos it grants 40% shout reduction which means elemental fury is available nearly all the time and can drop a dragon fast. My steel sword is kicking out around 55 base damage per hit, ive kept it unenchanted because the more hits it takes to kill an opponent the faster your one handed skill will develop.
Remember that this is the 'good' part of the playthrough, except only noble missions, become thane of several holds and avoid dubious quests that involve stealing or murder. Complete the Imperial Legion questline to enhance your experience and condition your hero.
As you can see our character is a pretty dedicated warrior, ive given him specialisation with swords as i think its nice to have mastery over a specific weapon, he's also invested heavily in heavy armor so that our imperial steel offers great defense without need of a shield.
Restoration has been taken to adept so that we can cast close wounds during combat and influence higher levels of undead with our turning spells. Illusion is also taken to adept so that it remains effective and saves your life in tougher environments.
We have created a solid fighter that is capable of standing tall amongst scores of enemies. But now its time to say goodbye to his old life...
Level 30 - 60 (Evil playthrough)
Its taken me a little time to decide in what way i'm going to change this war hero. For me it started with the death of Lydia at level 30, i left Dawnbreaker alongside her corpse and from that moment on my characters quest and skill choices changed completely as he grieved for her loss. He no longer travels with a companion and avoids towns and civilisation as a whole, when he does interact with people it usually ends in bloodshed.
It would have been easy to throw in conjuration, especially necromancy as its a skill that suits an evil playthrough. Instead ive made the changes more subtle and stuck to roleplaying this character in a way that feels believable to me by not jolting his skillset too much.
I started by carefully adding a couple of points to stealth and backstabbing as well as taking the savage strike perk from one handed to display a sudden cruelty and deviousness in combat. I then expanded his illusion skills to allow the casting of invisibility so that he's able to launch deadly surprise attacks on his enemies and duel casting his adept level spells gives him command over the strongest foes in the game.
More perks are invested in heavy armor to allow him to move quickly and absorb fall damage and his melee skills are slowly perked out. To make his gear more interesting i worked enchanting into the build.
Once restoration hit level 70 i took the necromage perk and contracted vampirism to embrace the demise of this character into pure darkness. Vampirism alone considerably boosts our stealth and illusion prowess but when combined with the necromage perk it makes all our spells and enchantments 25% more potent due to us now being classed as undead.
Our final perks are added to the destruction school in the form of ice magic as i believe it suits a vampiric character perfectly, destruction can be learned quickly at this point due to a larger magicka tank and skill in enchanting. I kept destruction at adept level due to my love of the ice storm spell.
The build is complete, our hero has fallen.
I've been wanting to create a new melee character for some time, been running mages and stealthers for much to long. The recent discovery of the necromage/vampire combo by Narmis/Magebane was a perfect chance to get stuck into a new build, but i wanted to create something a little different.
After some thought ive created a 'fallen hero', a character that starts life as a noble warrior but due to an unfortunate event descends into madness and eventually, evil. A little like an elder scrolls version of Anakin Skywalker. Basically, a roleplayers wet dream.
This build will be like creating two different characters in one playthrough and will include a level 30 and a level 60 leveling guide.
Tyrial, a noble warrior destined for one hell of a fall....(artwork modified from icewind dale)
Level 30 (Good Playthrough)
Race: Breton
Stone: Lord
Major Skills: One Handed, Heavy Armor, Smithing.
Minor Skills: Illusion, Restoration.
Armor: Full imperial steel armor with the rare closed helm. (AC is 511 at level 25 without a shield)
Weapon: Steel Sword or Imperial Sword. Dawnbreaker.
Strengths: Can turn the tide of any battle with mind altering spells. Can cast healing and illusions 'on the fly' due to not being hampered by a shield. Can restore stamina in a heartbeat allowing for unlimited sprinting. Very strong melee defence right through playthrough. Strong magical defence without enchantments. 40% shout time reduction allowing for near limitless elemental fury.
Quests: The Book of Love, Frostflow Lighthouse. All elemental fury word walls. Break of Dawn. Imperial Legion questline.
Gameplay
Firstly, I wanted to create a no-nonsense build that was easy to set up, was believable as a class and certainly dynamic to play. Although i'm a major fan of the block skill i just had to remove it for this build, I wanted to be able to cast healing and illusions fast during combat and allow my heavy armor skill to develop quickly and organically (blocking hampers armor skill gain).
As far as set-up goes you get your armor gift-wrapped upon your first kill during the tutorial (if you follow Ralof), illusion spells can all be bought in Whiterun along with fast healing and turn undead. Specialising in steel smithing allows us to spend just one perk to fully customise our gear for the entire playthrough. That leaves us with just four skills to neatly and progressively enhance.
Imperial armor is pleasently durable, i easily pushed it to 511AC with a blacksmiths philter and 95 in smithing by around level 25, considering max AC is 567 this isn't shabby. This does include the 50 point bonus from the lord stone though. The rare 'spartan' imperial helm is found during Meridias quest as you enter her temple on the first corpse, make sure you pick it up to complete your look!
Tyrial and his loyal captain Lydia...
Illusion is a wonderful little skill to specialise in. With just three perks invested in illusion you can mentally dominate frost trolls, chaurus reapers, giant spiders, sabre cats and bears for your entire playthrough, that should be a big weight off anyones mind. Muffle is a spell that i try to keep active at all times, as it often gives you chance to survey your environment and stops you being ambushed. Muffle is also illusions main exp spell and will level it impressively.
Restoration is tricky to develop, especially because we want to eventually learn necromage (lvl 70), the solution is simple, switch into an undead killer whenever you encounter them, turn everything, even if you dont really need to. Turn lesser undead is available in Whiterun early on and can turn both normal and restless draugr making it very useful right upto level 30. Training is also handy for all the spare cash thats going to pile up, i think i bought 10 levels of restoration during this playthrough, the rest of the money went on smithing.
The amulet of Talos is available the first time you get to Solitude on the corpse of the executed guard, ive worn it ever since as combined with the blessing of Talos it grants 40% shout reduction which means elemental fury is available nearly all the time and can drop a dragon fast. My steel sword is kicking out around 55 base damage per hit, ive kept it unenchanted because the more hits it takes to kill an opponent the faster your one handed skill will develop.
Remember that this is the 'good' part of the playthrough, except only noble missions, become thane of several holds and avoid dubious quests that involve stealing or murder. Complete the Imperial Legion questline to enhance your experience and condition your hero.
As you can see our character is a pretty dedicated warrior, ive given him specialisation with swords as i think its nice to have mastery over a specific weapon, he's also invested heavily in heavy armor so that our imperial steel offers great defense without need of a shield.
Restoration has been taken to adept so that we can cast close wounds during combat and influence higher levels of undead with our turning spells. Illusion is also taken to adept so that it remains effective and saves your life in tougher environments.
We have created a solid fighter that is capable of standing tall amongst scores of enemies. But now its time to say goodbye to his old life...
Level 30 - 60 (Evil playthrough)
Its taken me a little time to decide in what way i'm going to change this war hero. For me it started with the death of Lydia at level 30, i left Dawnbreaker alongside her corpse and from that moment on my characters quest and skill choices changed completely as he grieved for her loss. He no longer travels with a companion and avoids towns and civilisation as a whole, when he does interact with people it usually ends in bloodshed.
It would have been easy to throw in conjuration, especially necromancy as its a skill that suits an evil playthrough. Instead ive made the changes more subtle and stuck to roleplaying this character in a way that feels believable to me by not jolting his skillset too much.
I started by carefully adding a couple of points to stealth and backstabbing as well as taking the savage strike perk from one handed to display a sudden cruelty and deviousness in combat. I then expanded his illusion skills to allow the casting of invisibility so that he's able to launch deadly surprise attacks on his enemies and duel casting his adept level spells gives him command over the strongest foes in the game.
More perks are invested in heavy armor to allow him to move quickly and absorb fall damage and his melee skills are slowly perked out. To make his gear more interesting i worked enchanting into the build.
Once restoration hit level 70 i took the necromage perk and contracted vampirism to embrace the demise of this character into pure darkness. Vampirism alone considerably boosts our stealth and illusion prowess but when combined with the necromage perk it makes all our spells and enchantments 25% more potent due to us now being classed as undead.
Our final perks are added to the destruction school in the form of ice magic as i believe it suits a vampiric character perfectly, destruction can be learned quickly at this point due to a larger magicka tank and skill in enchanting. I kept destruction at adept level due to my love of the ice storm spell.
The build is complete, our hero has fallen.
