I'm a person that enjoys using cunning and guile to defeat enemies, even in a game as uh, simple as Skyrim, it gives me joy to absolutely destroy enemies using well placed traps, spells and attacks. Now with the base, vanilla game this gives us a very limited arsenal of Dragonborn Spider Scrolls, Bolts, Runes and, well that's honestly about it.
So I decided, to utilize my (rather limited) ability to play Skyrim on PC, and finally get around to creating a modded build, that can function as an Archer/Trap-Master.
Race: Bosmer (Wood Elf) is a must, not only for the Skill Boosts, but also because nothing says Druid-Trapper like a Bosmer.
Skills: Marksman, Alchemy, Sneak and Wayfarer
Minor Skills: Illusion, Destruction, Alteration, Heavy Armour, Light-Weaponry and Restoration
Weapons: Crossbows, Shortbows, Katana, Poisons and Traps
Magic: Diversions, Illusions, Barriers and Runes
Well I suppose I should just delve into it. I'm required to write a detailed description of my missions and skills, in order to prepare new members of the Guild for what life is like in the Artificers Guild, what this means, is I have to do something I really don't like, why the hell can't I just hire someone to write this for me, bah.
-----Personal Introduction-----
Alright, so introductions first, the name is Avellin Varel, Bosmeri Artificer, Druid Extraordinaire, and mediocre writer of the century. To put it simply, I kill things, mostly with explosions and poisons, but sometimes I use Magic, the point is...well I guess the point is that explosions are damn awesome, hmm, yep that's my point. Well, I haven't hid the word minimum the boss requires for these so I guess I'll talk more about general stuff...(boss is a slave driver, honestly worst reason to join the Guild)
------The Guild------
The Guild, right there's a good starting point. At it's core, the Artificer's Guild is a wide-reaching Mercenary operation, that specializes in Assassinations, Trapping and just generally ridding the world of criminals (which mostly involves blowing up Bandits). We're divided into multiple branches (but none of them are important), with the coolest, strongest, most awesome of them all being the Wild Artificers, like me.
-----Wild Artificers-----
We specialize in two things that most other Artificers don't. First of all, we tend to use a lot more poisons, crippling enemies and dealing damage over time rather than creating more elaborate traps. This means that compared to most of the other Artificers, we generally do more damage, and require less subtly. But the most important difference, is that we're users of Nature Magic, and well I guess more Magic in general. This enhances our power in the natural world, but generally means we aren't suited to combat within cities. But hey, I guess nobody can be as awesome as us anyway, and nobody is as cool as the great Avellin Varel .
Levels 1-10
Skills: Marksman, Wayfarer, Alchemy, Sneak and Alteration
Weapons: Crossbow and a Shortbow (usually poisoned)
Armour: Heavy Steel or Dwarven Plate, with Leather Boots
Magic: Oakflesh
Perks:
Wayfarer: Traveler 1/5 and Awareness
Marksmanship: Focus 2/5 and Ballistics
Restoration: Novice Restoration
Alteration: Novice Alteration
Alchemy: Alchemist 1/5
Sneak: Stealth 1/5
In my early days, wow was I a crappy fighter, at this point in time my skills as a Druid were non-existent, my ability to fight as a Mage was nearly as poor, and in close combat I called myself mincemeat, mostly because all I did was come close to death. What this means, is that I spent a lot of time hiding in the Shadows, firing quick arrows from my Short-bow, and bringing out ol' Rusty (my trusty Crossbow) whenever a heavily armored enemy thought he could get to me first...He never could.
Now the thing that made this all semi-impressive, was the fact that I was usually decked out in a full plate of Steel (or Dwarven Armour), what I wasn't going to give up my precious protection just to move a little faster, that's why I used a bow to slow the enemy. My traps were limited to whatever other Traps I could scavenge and my poisons were pretty weak. All in all I was a complete novice.
----------------------------------------------
Warriors: Hahahahaha, these guys are generally easy as all hell to kill. A few well placed Bolts or arrows can take them out long before they approach me, and if they can even get close to me, well that's when my traps come in to deal damage to any survivors. I also liked to throw up a quick Oakflesh Spell, to stop enemies from dealing too much damage to me, hehe, and that works pretty damn well.
Mages: Mages are a bit more tricky to deal with. I tend to use my Crossbow to stagger the more than just inflict straight out damage, stopping them from casting their spells is much more important than dealing massive damage.
Archers: As always I fight from afar, dealing large damage with my Crossbow, in order to simply take them out as quickly as possible. As long as I hit them I should be fine, and trust me, the great Avellin Varel never misses, except when she tries to. As with Warriors I threw up Oakflesh, just in case.
Levels 10-30
-----Skills-----
Marksman, Light-Weaponry, Wayfarer, Alchemy and Sneak
Welp let's see. I'm a super archer, a decent enough sword-fighter, an awesome alchemist, I can live off the land really well and I'm basically a super stealthy ninja, all in all I think we can safety agree that I am super badass. Basically I guess I was a bit of a Ranger back now, living off the lands, fighting with a bow and sword, and so on and so forth. My trapping was still a little limited, but looking to be pretty cool.
-----Minor Skills-----
Alteration, Restoration and Illusion
Protection is the name of the game where my magic is concerned. I use Alteration Spells to protect my body, Illusion to stop enemies in their tracks, and Restoration magic to heal my body. I do know a few offensive spells, but I find them really tiresome.
-----Weapons-----
Crossbow (Enhanced), Shortbow and a Katana (usually all poisoned)
Oh yeah, finally got myself a badass sword, Katanas are so damn sweet, and coupled with my bows just gives me way more options in combat.
-----Armour:-----
Druid Armour - Beasts
See, I kinda got lost once, I was journeying from Falkreath up to Dawnstar, and somehow ended up somewhere between Riften and Windhelm (please don't ask how it happened, I'm terrible with directions and it just always happens), but even though it was an accident I found something truly badass. An old Druid home, built up in the trees through magic, and it's there that I found some awesome armour, that enhanced some of my poisons and other natural abilities.
Main Abilities: Allows 3 ingredients to be gathered instead of 1, more poisons/potions are created at Alchemy Tables and Poisons last 20 hits instead of 1.
-----Magic-----
Drop Zone, Oakflesh, Disorient, Healing, Traveller's Art - Wind Gust, Traveller's Art - Wooden Decoy, Druid Art - Vine Barrier, Druid Art - Geyser Fission
My spell variety greatly improved once I found the old Druidic home. Wooden Decoy and Disorient made it easier for enemies to ignore me (Disorient staggered them and Wooden Decoy, made well a decoy). Oakflesh, Vine Barrier and Wind Gust allowed some defensive moves (Wind Gust increases your speed and Vine Barrier creates, well barriers). And if needed I could always use Geyser Fission to launch enemies around and then heal myself with magic.
Modded Spells: All Druid and Traveller Art Spells come from Druid Essentials, Disorient and Drop Zone come from Apocalypse or Lost Grimoire of Skyim.
-----Perks-----
Marksmanship: Focus 5/5, Ballistics, Lightweight Construction and Advanced Missilecraft 2/3
Alchemy: Alchemist 1/5,Adhesive Explosives, Poisoner 1/3, Fuse and Poison Burst
Smithing: Blacksmith 1/5, Principles of Smithing and Dwarven Rigging
Alteration: Novice-Apprentice Alteration
Restoration: Novice Restoration
Illusion: Novice Illusion
Wayfarer: Traveler 1/5, Awareness and Hunting Grounds 1/2
Sneak: Stealth 3/5
Light Weaponry: Armsman 3/5
Around now I started using my Sword more, it felt right to learn to use a weapon that would be more appropriate for close combat, rather than just my unwieldy Shortbow and Crossbow. I chose a Katana, partially for it's speed but also because who the hell doesn't look cool swinging a Katana, ninja warrior Avellin would be such a cool name.
Along with my Sword, I also started using more poisoned arrows, delivering new and more deadly types of Poisons to enemies to weaken them even faster, along the way I discovered a bit of a trick, that kind of taught me how to make explosives, now that is when everything starts screwing up for anyone trying to engage me in long range combat
----------------------------------------------
Warriors: I mostly tend to fight Warriors in close combat, sword on sword, axe on sword, regardless of what weapon they use I'll do my best to slay them. If, they're more heavily armoured then I'll weaken them with my Shortbow from long range, before charging in and finishing them off.
Mages: Mages are fought in a similar manner to how I used to fight them, simple and quick arrows (with poisons when needed) that deal small amounts of damage but constantly staggering them, stopping any attempts to cast spells.
Archers: Archers are becoming slightly more of a problem, they seem to be just as powerful as I am, and getting close is getting to be a bit off a problem. It's especially difficult when fighting multiple Archers, who can shoot arrows faster then I can recover from a first. My general strategy is to duck between cover, trying to get close enough to fight them in melee combat, if that doesn't work, then I just try and bulk myself up with magic as much as possible.
Three-Sword Blocking (Defensive):
By constantly raising and lowering her sword, Avellin can create an Illusion of three
(With Skyrim Redone installed this increases your chances of activating a timed block, but makes actually blocking the strikes slightly harder)swords waving in front of her at all times, creating a barrier to protect from any melee attack.
Advanced Sword Combat (Offensive):
With speeds far outstripping normal sword fighters, Avellin has learned to seemingly strike multiple times in a single strike.
(In Third-Person mode, strafe left and right rapidly while attacking, occasionally this will unleash multiple strikes at the same time.(Sword must be in your left hand)
Wind Step (Offensive & Defensive):
Not only can I speed up by blows, but I can even enhance my step during combat, allowing me to dodge enemies at a fantastic rate. combined with Advanced Sword Combat I can unleash blows from all directions much faster than anyone else.
(Use Travellers Art - Wind Gust coupled with Advanced Sword Combat)
Art is an Explosion (Offensive)
By enhancing an arrow or Bolt with an explosive tip, and then latching another explosion to my arrow, I can make a super big, mega, awesome explosion. It's probably better for multiple opponents but anything that does survive the first show will be thrown everywhere.
(Use an Enhanced Arrow or Bolt and apply the Adhesive Explosion to your Bow.)
Piercing Fang (Mixed Offence)
Haha, first I make an explosive arrow, now a barbed arrow. A single shot of a poisoned tipped barbed arrow not only slows an opponent down, but also inflicts a whole bunch of damage over time.
(Create a Barbed Arrow and apply any DoT Poison to your Bow)
Field of Vines:
I picked up this useful spell that lets me make these vine barriers, throw a couple of Bear Traps with various applied poisons and watch the carnage, as enemies charge through to their deaths.
(Create a wall of Vine Barriers using Druid Art - Vine Barrier, and use Bear Traps enhanced with the Poison Burst perk to trap them in a field of Poison)
And that's it folks. I know that compared to some of my builds it was slightly lacking in terms of Roleplay/Backstory but I do have a reason for this. Basically I played this build, and wanted to let everyone create their own character based around this, so each playthrough could be different. I think the way I've written the build as a whole can give a little bit of a show into the character, so I really didn't need a dedicated section.
If the use of Mods doesn't appeal to you, I do have a similar build of the same series called the Mechanical Artificer which is completely vanilla. It uses the same theme or traps but does it a different way. I'll also be releasing a new build soon (again apart of the Artificer Series) that will be playable both with mods and without.
Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the build. If you did why not leave a like, and of course check out some of my other builds.
Required Mods:
Skyrim Redone
Druid Essentials
Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim
Forgotten Magic Redone
Lost Grimoire of Skyrim
Achieve That
Frostfall
Optional Mods
Wrath of Nature
I'm a person that enjoys using cunning and guile to defeat enemies, even in a game as uh, simple as Skyrim, it gives me joy to absolutely destroy enemies using well placed traps, spells and attacks. Now with the base, vanilla game this gives us a very limited arsenal of Dragonborn Spider Scrolls, Bolts, Runes and, well that's honestly about it.
So I decided, to utilize my (rather limited) ability to play Skyrim on PC, and finally get around to creating a modded build, that can function as an Archer/Trap-Master.
Race: Bosmer (Wood Elf) is a must, not only for the Skill Boosts, but also because nothing says Druid-Trapper like a Bosmer.
Skills: Marksman, Alchemy, Sneak and Wayfarer
Minor Skills: Illusion, Destruction, Alteration, Heavy Armour, Light-Weaponry and Restoration
Weapons: Crossbows, Shortbows, Katana, Poisons and Traps
Magic: Diversions, Illusions, Barriers and Runes
Well I suppose I should just delve into it. I'm required to write a detailed description of my missions and skills, in order to prepare new members of the Guild for what life is like in the Artificers Guild, what this means, is I have to do something I really don't like, why the hell can't I just hire someone to write this for me, bah.
-----Personal Introduction-----
Alright, so introductions first, the name is Avellin Varel, Bosmeri Artificer, Druid Extraordinaire, and mediocre writer of the century. To put it simply, I kill things, mostly with explosions and poisons, but sometimes I use Magic, the point is...well I guess the point is that explosions are damn awesome, hmm, yep that's my point. Well, I haven't hid the word minimum the boss requires for these so I guess I'll talk more about general stuff...(boss is a slave driver, honestly worst reason to join the Guild)
------The Guild------
The Guild, right there's a good starting point. At it's core, the Artificer's Guild is a wide-reaching Mercenary operation, that specializes in Assassinations, Trapping and just generally ridding the world of criminals (which mostly involves blowing up Bandits). We're divided into multiple branches (but none of them are important), with the coolest, strongest, most awesome of them all being the Wild Artificers, like me.
-----Wild Artificers-----
We specialize in two things that most other Artificers don't. First of all, we tend to use a lot more poisons, crippling enemies and dealing damage over time rather than creating more elaborate traps. This means that compared to most of the other Artificers, we generally do more damage, and require less subtly. But the most important difference, is that we're users of Nature Magic, and well I guess more Magic in general. This enhances our power in the natural world, but generally means we aren't suited to combat within cities. But hey, I guess nobody can be as awesome as us anyway, and nobody is as cool as the great Avellin Varel .
Levels 1-10
Skills: Marksman, Wayfarer, Alchemy, Sneak and Alteration
Weapons: Crossbow and a Shortbow (usually poisoned)
Armour: Heavy Steel or Dwarven Plate, with Leather Boots
Magic: Oakflesh
Perks:
Wayfarer: Traveler 1/5 and Awareness
Marksmanship: Focus 2/5 and Ballistics
Restoration: Novice Restoration
Alteration: Novice Alteration
Alchemy: Alchemist 1/5
Sneak: Stealth 1/5
In my early days, wow was I a crappy fighter, at this point in time my skills as a Druid were non-existent, my ability to fight as a Mage was nearly as poor, and in close combat I called myself mincemeat, mostly because all I did was come close to death. What this means, is that I spent a lot of time hiding in the Shadows, firing quick arrows from my Short-bow, and bringing out ol' Rusty (my trusty Crossbow) whenever a heavily armored enemy thought he could get to me first...He never could.
Now the thing that made this all semi-impressive, was the fact that I was usually decked out in a full plate of Steel (or Dwarven Armour), what I wasn't going to give up my precious protection just to move a little faster, that's why I used a bow to slow the enemy. My traps were limited to whatever other Traps I could scavenge and my poisons were pretty weak. All in all I was a complete novice.
----------------------------------------------
Warriors: Hahahahaha, these guys are generally easy as all hell to kill. A few well placed Bolts or arrows can take them out long before they approach me, and if they can even get close to me, well that's when my traps come in to deal damage to any survivors. I also liked to throw up a quick Oakflesh Spell, to stop enemies from dealing too much damage to me, hehe, and that works pretty damn well.
Mages: Mages are a bit more tricky to deal with. I tend to use my Crossbow to stagger the more than just inflict straight out damage, stopping them from casting their spells is much more important than dealing massive damage.
Archers: As always I fight from afar, dealing large damage with my Crossbow, in order to simply take them out as quickly as possible. As long as I hit them I should be fine, and trust me, the great Avellin Varel never misses, except when she tries to. As with Warriors I threw up Oakflesh, just in case.
Levels 10-30
-----Skills-----
Marksman, Light-Weaponry, Wayfarer, Alchemy and Sneak
Welp let's see. I'm a super archer, a decent enough sword-fighter, an awesome alchemist, I can live off the land really well and I'm basically a super stealthy ninja, all in all I think we can safety agree that I am super badass. Basically I guess I was a bit of a Ranger back now, living off the lands, fighting with a bow and sword, and so on and so forth. My trapping was still a little limited, but looking to be pretty cool.
-----Minor Skills-----
Alteration, Restoration and Illusion
Protection is the name of the game where my magic is concerned. I use Alteration Spells to protect my body, Illusion to stop enemies in their tracks, and Restoration magic to heal my body. I do know a few offensive spells, but I find them really tiresome.
-----Weapons-----
Crossbow (Enhanced), Shortbow and a Katana (usually all poisoned)
Oh yeah, finally got myself a badass sword, Katanas are so damn sweet, and coupled with my bows just gives me way more options in combat.
-----Armour:-----
Druid Armour - Beasts
See, I kinda got lost once, I was journeying from Falkreath up to Dawnstar, and somehow ended up somewhere between Riften and Windhelm (please don't ask how it happened, I'm terrible with directions and it just always happens), but even though it was an accident I found something truly badass. An old Druid home, built up in the trees through magic, and it's there that I found some awesome armour, that enhanced some of my poisons and other natural abilities.
Main Abilities: Allows 3 ingredients to be gathered instead of 1, more poisons/potions are created at Alchemy Tables and Poisons last 20 hits instead of 1.
-----Magic-----
Drop Zone, Oakflesh, Disorient, Healing, Traveller's Art - Wind Gust, Traveller's Art - Wooden Decoy, Druid Art - Vine Barrier, Druid Art - Geyser Fission
My spell variety greatly improved once I found the old Druidic home. Wooden Decoy and Disorient made it easier for enemies to ignore me (Disorient staggered them and Wooden Decoy, made well a decoy). Oakflesh, Vine Barrier and Wind Gust allowed some defensive moves (Wind Gust increases your speed and Vine Barrier creates, well barriers). And if needed I could always use Geyser Fission to launch enemies around and then heal myself with magic.
Modded Spells: All Druid and Traveller Art Spells come from Druid Essentials, Disorient and Drop Zone come from Apocalypse or Lost Grimoire of Skyim.
-----Perks-----
Marksmanship: Focus 5/5, Ballistics, Lightweight Construction and Advanced Missilecraft 2/3
Alchemy: Alchemist 1/5,Adhesive Explosives, Poisoner 1/3, Fuse and Poison Burst
Smithing: Blacksmith 1/5, Principles of Smithing and Dwarven Rigging
Alteration: Novice-Apprentice Alteration
Restoration: Novice Restoration
Illusion: Novice Illusion
Wayfarer: Traveler 1/5, Awareness and Hunting Grounds 1/2
Sneak: Stealth 3/5
Light Weaponry: Armsman 3/5
Around now I started using my Sword more, it felt right to learn to use a weapon that would be more appropriate for close combat, rather than just my unwieldy Shortbow and Crossbow. I chose a Katana, partially for it's speed but also because who the hell doesn't look cool swinging a Katana, ninja warrior Avellin would be such a cool name.
Along with my Sword, I also started using more poisoned arrows, delivering new and more deadly types of Poisons to enemies to weaken them even faster, along the way I discovered a bit of a trick, that kind of taught me how to make explosives, now that is when everything starts screwing up for anyone trying to engage me in long range combat
----------------------------------------------
Warriors: I mostly tend to fight Warriors in close combat, sword on sword, axe on sword, regardless of what weapon they use I'll do my best to slay them. If, they're more heavily armoured then I'll weaken them with my Shortbow from long range, before charging in and finishing them off.
Mages: Mages are fought in a similar manner to how I used to fight them, simple and quick arrows (with poisons when needed) that deal small amounts of damage but constantly staggering them, stopping any attempts to cast spells.
Archers: Archers are becoming slightly more of a problem, they seem to be just as powerful as I am, and getting close is getting to be a bit off a problem. It's especially difficult when fighting multiple Archers, who can shoot arrows faster then I can recover from a first. My general strategy is to duck between cover, trying to get close enough to fight them in melee combat, if that doesn't work, then I just try and bulk myself up with magic as much as possible.
Three-Sword Blocking (Defensive):
By constantly raising and lowering her sword, Avellin can create an Illusion of three
(With Skyrim Redone installed this increases your chances of activating a timed block, but makes actually blocking the strikes slightly harder)swords waving in front of her at all times, creating a barrier to protect from any melee attack.
Advanced Sword Combat (Offensive):
With speeds far outstripping normal sword fighters, Avellin has learned to seemingly strike multiple times in a single strike.
(In Third-Person mode, strafe left and right rapidly while attacking, occasionally this will unleash multiple strikes at the same time.(Sword must be in your left hand)
Wind Step (Offensive & Defensive):
Not only can I speed up by blows, but I can even enhance my step during combat, allowing me to dodge enemies at a fantastic rate. combined with Advanced Sword Combat I can unleash blows from all directions much faster than anyone else.
(Use Travellers Art - Wind Gust coupled with Advanced Sword Combat)
Art is an Explosion (Offensive)
By enhancing an arrow or Bolt with an explosive tip, and then latching another explosion to my arrow, I can make a super big, mega, awesome explosion. It's probably better for multiple opponents but anything that does survive the first show will be thrown everywhere.
(Use an Enhanced Arrow or Bolt and apply the Adhesive Explosion to your Bow.)
Piercing Fang (Mixed Offence)
Haha, first I make an explosive arrow, now a barbed arrow. A single shot of a poisoned tipped barbed arrow not only slows an opponent down, but also inflicts a whole bunch of damage over time.
(Create a Barbed Arrow and apply any DoT Poison to your Bow)
Field of Vines:
I picked up this useful spell that lets me make these vine barriers, throw a couple of Bear Traps with various applied poisons and watch the carnage, as enemies charge through to their deaths.
(Create a wall of Vine Barriers using Druid Art - Vine Barrier, and use Bear Traps enhanced with the Poison Burst perk to trap them in a field of Poison)
And that's it folks. I know that compared to some of my builds it was slightly lacking in terms of Roleplay/Backstory but I do have a reason for this. Basically I played this build, and wanted to let everyone create their own character based around this, so each playthrough could be different. I think the way I've written the build as a whole can give a little bit of a show into the character, so I really didn't need a dedicated section.
If the use of Mods doesn't appeal to you, I do have a similar build of the same series called the Mechanical Artificer which is completely vanilla. It uses the same theme or traps but does it a different way. I'll also be releasing a new build soon (again apart of the Artificer Series) that will be playable both with mods and without.
Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the build. If you did why not leave a like, and of course check out some of my other builds.
Required Mods:
Skyrim Redone
Druid Essentials
Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim
Forgotten Magic Redone
Lost Grimoire of Skyrim
Achieve That
Frostfall
Optional Mods
Wrath of Nature
