I have question!! I have looked at many builds on this wonderful site and I keep seeing something that confuses me. In some builds when it talks about what stone to use it will say "Advanced Lady stone." What does it mean for a stone to be advanced? How does one make a stone "Advanced"? If anyone could help my noobishness it would be most appreciated :)

Ah, that's talking about a little glitch with Fortify Restoration potions that allows them to kind of...stack on top of each other and then can be used to boost the effects of a stone (The Lady, Apprentice and Atronach are the only ones I think it effects, I've heard people say the Lord is boosted but I've never checked), making them 'Advanced Versions' of the base stones. Here's the easiest method (It can be done without creating your own potions)

1 - Equip Fortify Alchemy item(s)

2 - Create Fortify Restoration potion. 

3 - Drink Fortify Restoration potion

4 - Unequip Fortify Alchemy item(s)

5 - Repeat steps 1-4 until you have a high percentage Fortify Restoration Potion

Sadly it doesn't work with the unofficial patches but hey, you take what you can get with them I suppose.

Oh man, standing stones huh. Well I have a build that uses the Unlimited Shadow Stone (and the Advanced Apprentice), actually two that use the Unlimited Shadow Stone now that I think about it, I've got another that used the Advanced Lady and I've used both the Unlimited Ritual and Serpent Stones before. So I guess I just need to do is figure out something that uses the Advanced Atronach Stone without being ungodly boring and I'll have modified all of the standing stones to be overpowered as all shit.

I think I'm one of those people who ultimitely hate the Standing Stones and would rather just download a mod that lets me have Birthsigns again, they seem to be designed purely for characters that need to min/max or people that want to try everything in a single playthrough. I'd much rather just have some slightly more powerful signs from the beginning but never be able to change them, that would make them a hell of a lot more important to a character. I guess in the end I just don't care about them, they don't feel like anything other than a permanent potion you know, something cool to use as a buff but not something that defines my character like the Birthsigns did.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dean1]Dean[/url] said:[/b]

Question: if you are using a build that starts off with the Warrior/Mage/Thief Stone but progresses to another, around what level do you usually switch to the other stone?

[/blockquote]

That's a great question Dean, unfortunatly my answer is "it depends on the character".  What I mean is it depends on what skills you are leveling and what perks you want to take, not the overall level of the character.  For instance say your playing an "assassin throat slitter" out of Helgen you take the Theif stone to help level sneak, your goal is the Assassin's Blade perk for ungodly sneak damage with daggers.  Once you get that perk there is really no other reason for the throat slitter to continue with the Theif stone at this point he would switch to another more useful stone for the character, perhaps the Shadow.  In this example if the only skill you leveled during play was sneak you would only be level 7 when you switched stones.  However, if you also wanted the Shadow Warrior perk, again assuming the only skill you level is sneak, then you would switch at level 17.  In all likelyhood you'll be at higher levels then these since you'll usually be leveling other skills as well during play.  The point is that you are not switching stones at a certain overall level but at a certain skill level.

Hope that helps.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Vargr]Vargr White-Tree[/url] said:[/b]

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dean1]Dean[/url] said:[/b]

Question: if you are using a build that starts off with the Warrior/Mage/Thief Stone but progresses to another, around what level do you usually switch to the other stone?

[/blockquote]

That's a great question Dean, unfortunatly my answer is "it depends on the character".  What I mean is it depends on what skills you are leveling and what perks you want to take, not the overall level of the character.  For instance say your playing an "assassin throat slitter" out of Helgen you take the Theif stone to help level sneak, your goal is the Assassin's Blade perk for ungodly sneak damage with daggers.  Once you get that perk there is really no other reason for the throat slitter to continue with the Theif stone at this point he would switch to another more useful stone for the character, perhaps the Shadow.  In this example if the only skill you leveled during play was sneak you would only be level 7 when you switched stones.  However, if you also wanted the Shadow Warrior perk, again assuming the only skill you level is sneak, then you would switch at level 17.  In all likelyhood you'll be at higher levels then these since you'll usually be leveling other skills as well during play.  The point is that you are not switching stones at a certain overall level but at a certain skill level.

Hope that helps.

[/blockquote]

I see, that makes sense. I should set some end-goal perks, so once I reach them I can switch over to the other stone.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Dean1]Dean[/url] said:[/b]

I see, that makes sense. I should set some end-goal perks, so once I reach them I can switch over to the other stone.

[/blockquote]

Yeah, it's pretty utilitarian for me as well--once leveling becomes less important than some other ability, skill, or funtion, I swap stones. That may happen as early as level 5 for one character, but for another it may not happen until level 30. And then for some characters I might stick with the original stone all the way through.

Thanks a bunch Dragonborn1721, that makes a lot of sense since those stones gives restortion based effects. I may just have to give that a try.

I think the best way to go about thinking of standing stones would be more along the lines of bonus modifiers.
Many classic tabletop RPG's and indeed some mordern days CRPGs use a system where a certain stat or a certain mechanic is given a modifier.|
They can also be used to indicate a certain "path" that a build would naturally evolve into.

To put it into context:

• There are 6 possible classes / sub class variants:
  
  
• Mage
• Pure cloth casters, no melee. no or limited sneak capabilities
  
  
• Warrior 
• Pure plate dps, no arcane. No or limited sneak capabilites, blocking 
  
  
• Thief
• Pure leather DPS, No arcane capabilities, no or limited blocking capabilities
  
  
• Warrior/mage
• Plate/cloth with melee & magic capabilities. No or limited sneak.
  
  
• Mage/thief
• Leather/cloth with sneak & magic capabilities. No or limited melee.
  
  
• Warrior/thief
• Leather/plate with sneak and melee capabilities. No or limited arcane.

Each of these variants, regardless of the trade skills used (Enchanting, Blacksmithing, Alchemy), can adopt a standing stone for progression.
Here are a few examples:

• Mage
• Pure cloth casters, no melee. no or limited sneak capabilities
• Stone: Mage --> Apprentice / Ritual
• Mage evolves to reckless mage or necromancer type
  
  
• Warrior 
• Pure plate dps, no arcane. No or limited sneak capabilites, blocking 
• Stone:Warrior -->Lord / Steed
• Warrior evolves to Tank or agile DPS tyoe
  
  
• Thief
• Pure leather DPS, No arcane capabilities, no or limited blocking capabilities
• Stone: Thief --> Shadow/Tower or Serpent
• Thief evolves to enhanced thief or assasin/ranger type
  
  
• Warrior/mage
• Plate/cloth with melee & magic capabilities. No or limited sneak.
• Stone: Lover stone --> Atronach/ Lord / Ritual
• All skill up evolves to Sorceror/crusader, battlemage/templar or Death knight type
  
  
• Mage/thief
• Leather/cloth with sneak & magic capabilities. No or limited melee.
• Stone: Lover Stone --> Serpent  or Ritual / Apprentice/ Lady
• All skills evolves to nightblade, high burst stealth mage or spell sword
  
  
• Warrior/thief
• Leather/plate with sneak and melee capabilities. No or limited arcane.
• Stone: Lover stone --> shadow stone / Steed stone / Serpent 
• All skills evolve to scout, burglar or melee stealth assasin type

The abve are just my thoughts on the subject. Of course, once can try to emulate the class system of the previous elsder scrolls game and try to fit it into the progression path of every archetype stated above.

I believe however, that the standing stones can be best utilized in the above way, as a suppliment, not a dependency.